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Animation: The Heartbeat of Nature’s Productivity

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Animation: The Heartbeat of Nature’s Productivity

Even the most ferocious predator must rely on simple plants for vitality. That’s because without the conversion of carbon dioxide to organic compounds, entire food chains would cease to exist.

Photosynthesis is quite the catalyst for life, yet it’s easy to overlook this humble chemical process. But what if you could see its results scaled across the globe?

The Pulse of Nature

Today’s unique cartogram animation comes from geographer Benjamin Hennig at Worldmapper, and it depicts ongoing cycles in the productivity of ecological systems around the world. Created with Yadvinder Malhi from the University of Oxford, the researchers factored the daily net photosynthesis value over an 8-day interval of satellite observations, and extrapolated the trends for a year.

The outcome? A pattern of gross primary productivity (GPP) – the net amount of energy produced by land plants during photosynthesis – resembling the rhythmic impression of a “heartbeat”.

Here’s how a big-picture of average annual productivity ends up looking:

Nature

Location, Location, Location

Although the entire biosphere harnesses the sun’s energy, it’s clear this varies greatly based on both region and season. For example, desert areas such as the Sahara or Australian Outback occupy relatively low productivity areas on the map.

The taiga biome, a boreal forest made of coniferous trees such as pines, accounts for nearly a third of the world’s forest cover. Since the largest boreal areas are in Russia and Canada, it’s no wonder their productivity shrinks dramatically when it gets a bit cooler up north. When these areas slow down in sub-zero temperatures, their tropical neighbors to the south do the heavy lifting.

If forests are considered the world’s lungs, then the Amazon in South America and Congo forest in Central Africa help us all breathe a bit easier. The two largest forests act as crucial “carbon sinks”, trapping carbon that would otherwise be converted to carbon dioxide.

It’s also why rapid deforestation of these areas is cause for alarm. Many environmental scientists suggest that our human impact on forests could intensify global warming.

But there is good news – since the 1990s, the rate of net forest loss has declined by almost half. Progress fares differently across the regions:

Image Source: United Nations

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Visualized: An Investor’s Carbon Footprint, by Sector

Which sectors are the largest contributors to emissions? From energy to tech, this graphic shows carbon emissions by sector in 2023.

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Visualized: An Investor’s Carbon Footprint, by Sector

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The following content is sponsored by MSCI
Visualized: An Investor’s Carbon Footprint, by Sector

Visualized: An Investor’s Carbon Footprint, by Sector

In the quest for a sustainable future, investors can play a crucial role in shaping our planet’s destiny.

Understanding the carbon emissions in different sectors is a key way to make environmentally and financially conscious decisions and help make a positive impact on the planet.

This infographic, sponsored by MSCI, looks at carbon emissions by sector.

Types of Carbon Emissions

Unsurprisingly, industries heavily reliant on fossil fuels and energy-intensive processes, like energy, materials, and industrials, have significant carbon footprints. In contrast, service-based and technology industries are traditionally less carbon-intensive.

To get an accurate picture of a sector/industry’s carbon footprint, it’s important to look up and down their value chain. Here is how policymakers categorize carbon emissions:

  1. Scope 1: Generated directly by the organization and within its control e.g., on-site fuel combustion and internal industrial processes.
  2. Scope 2: Indirect emissions from energy use, such as purchased electricity, heat, or cooling.
  3. Scope 3: Indirect emissions, but different from Scope 2 emissions. These are emissions that the company does not directly control such as the emissions produced from a supplier or emissions generated from the use of its sold product.

Only looking at all three scopes of emissions can we arrive at a complete picture of a sector’s carbon footprint.

Volume of Carbon Emissions, by Sector

The following table breaks down the greenhouse gas emissions for each sector by scope. A sector’s carbon footprint is expressed in metric tons of CO2 equivalent for every $1 million in financing.

In other words, here’s how much of a climate impact a one million dollar investment has in each of the following sectors.

The total figure represents the weighted average carbon emissions of each sector’s constituents as of August 10, 2023:

SectorScope 1
Scope 2
Scope 3
Total
Energy263.327.22827.53118.0
Materials298.482.81349.21730.4
Utilities461.416.0405.5883.0
Industrials32.68.3425.1466.0
Consumer
discretionary
5.09.0372.2386.2
Consumer staples16.512.4276.4305.3
Information
technology
2.05.879.387.1
Health care1.82.470.975.1
Financials4.01.158.363.4
Real estate1.45.946.854.0
Communication
services
0.64.740.545.8

Represented by tCO₂e/USD million EVIC. EVIC is the enterprise value including cash.

Understanding carbon footprint profiles can help investors evaluate the risks faced by carbon-intensive industries, such as future regulations and reputational challenges.

MSCI’s climate metrics empower investors to make responsible investments and drive meaningful change.

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Download MSCI’s Climate Metrics Report.

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