Acquisition of Sust Global by ISS Sustainability Solutions to Enhance Artificial Intelligence-Based Geospatial Climate Risk Assessments

Acquisition of Sust Global by ISS Sustainability Solutions to Enhance Artificial Intelligence-Based Geospatial Climate Risk Assessments

In a move that underscores the growing importance of environmental risk management for financial institutions, ISS Sustainability Solutions has announced the acquisition of Sust Global. This strategic partnership aims to provide investors with cutting-edge solutions for monitoring geospatial risks, enabling them to make informed decisions and manage risks more effectively.

Josh Gilbert, co-founder and CEO of Sust Global, highlights the benefits of the collaboration: "Our geospatial AI platform enables financial institutions to drill down into individual asset locations to understand material physical risks related to climate and nature. This granular insight helps quantify financial impacts specific to each asset’s geography."

Key benefits of the Sust Global platform include:

1. Detailed Location-Specific Risk Exposure Analysis: Sust Global's proprietary geospatial AI platform offers financial institutions the ability to analyse specific risks associated with climate and nature for each individual asset location.
2. Enhanced Risk Management and Due Diligence: The geospatial analytics provide essential data for comprehensive risk management, facilitating due diligence processes and supporting regulatory compliance and engagement efforts by revealing spatial risk patterns across portfolios.
3. Integration with Institutional Workflows: Sust Global's flexible products can be embedded directly into investors’ existing systems, improving workflow efficiency and decision-making.
4. Predictive Modeling and Scenario Analysis: The AI engine harmonizes diverse geo-datasets and deploys domain-specific predictive models, offering forward-looking analytics for climate-related physical risks, which is critical for adaptation planning and assessing investment resilience.
5. Support for Regulatory and Sustainable Investment Needs: With growing regulatory demands and institutional investor focus on sustainability, geospatial risk analytics enable compliance with emerging reporting frameworks and help identify portfolio companies’ exposure to environmental risks.

Applications of geospatial risk modeling and analytics include:

1. Portfolio Risk Assessment: Banks, insurers, and asset managers use geospatial risk data to evaluate and quantify risks to individual assets and portfolios from climate hazards like flooding, wildfires, or droughts.
2. Investment Strategy and Engagement: Enhanced risk visualization tools support strategic investment decisions and active engagement with portfolio companies to mitigate location-based risks.
3. Regulatory Reporting: Enables institutions to meet regulatory requirements for physical risk disclosure by providing transparent, auditable spatial risk data.
4. Sustainable Finance: Assists in aligning investment portfolios with climate adaptation and sustainability goals via data-driven insights on natural hazard exposure and impact metrics.

The acquisition underscores how geospatial risk modeling is becoming a crucial capability for financial institutions to both understand environmental risks in asset portfolios and act on them effectively, supporting sustainable finance strategies and regulatory compliance. Furthermore, the collaboration between Sust Global and ISS Sustainability Solutions is significant for addressing transition risk and climate disclosure.

[1] Sust Global, "Sust Global Acquired by ISS Sustainability Solutions to Enhance Geospatial Risk Modeling for Financial Institutions," Press Release, [Date], https://sustglobal.com/press-releases/sust-global-acquired-by-iss-sustainability-solutions-to-enhance-geospatial-risk-modeling-for-financial-institutions/

[2] ISS Sustainability Solutions, "ISS Sustainability Solutions Acquires Sust Global to Expand Geospatial Risk Modeling Capabilities," Press Release, [Date], https://www.issgovernance.com/news/iss-sustainability-solutions-acquires-sust-global-to-expand-geospatial-risk-modeling-capabilities/

1. The acquisition of Sust Global by ISS Sustainability Solutions will bolster the financial sector's ability to use artificial intelligence in environmental science, specifically for analyzing and managing climate-change risks related to individual asset locations.
2. By integrating Sust Global's geospatial AI platform, financial institutions can not only conduct more effective risk management and due diligence, but also make informed decisions about investing in technology that addresses climate-change issues.
3. As the demands for regulatory compliance and sustainable investing increase, the collaboration between Sust Global and ISS Sustainability Solutions is crucial for helping financial institutions employ technological solutions to measure and manage their environmental risks, particularly in regard to transition risk and climate disclosure.

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