PACTA Terminology Update: ALD becomes ABCD

Explaining the decision to change terminology from Asset-Level Data to Asset-Based Company Data.

The PACTA team has recently decided to update the terminology used to refer to a crucial dataset. The dataset that was previously known as “Asset-Level Data” (ALD) will henceforth be referred to as “Asset-Based Company Data” (ABCD). This note explains our reasoning.

Explanation

The PACTA methodology depends fundamentally on 3 input datasets:

• Portfolio data (e.g. portfolios, loanbooks, etc.)
• Climate change mitigation scenarios (e.g. International Energy Agency’s - Sustainable Development Scenario )¹
• Data on the production of physical assets

Historically, this last dataset was referred to as the “Asset-Level Data” (ALD). This name was a natural choice, since the underlying data describes the production of physical assets that are owned and operated by various companies globally.

An asset-level dataset might contain the following information:

Asset-Level Data
Asset ID	Asset Name	Sector	Technology	Year	Capacity	Capacity Unit	Plant Location
1	a wind farm	power	renewablescap	2020	100	MW	ES
1	a wind farm	power	renewablescap	2025	200	MW	ES
2	a coal-fired plant	power	coalcap	2020	500	MW	DE
2	a coal-fired plant	power	coalcap	2025	300	MW	DE

In the table above, data is given out directly at the level of the physical asset.

However, while it is possible to run PACTA using data at the asset-level, the back-end for both the PACTA for Investors online tool, and the free data-set provided for the PACTA for Banks desktop tool have been pre-processed. The actual data used has already been aggregated from the asset-level, to the company-level (for all companies owning the assets):

Asset-Based Company Data
Company ID	Company Name	Sector	Technology	Year	Capacity	Capacity Unit	Plant Location
3	renewables inc.	power	renewablescap	2013	11347.85	MW	AS
3	renewables inc.	power	renewablescap	2014	11744.77	MW	AS
3	renewables inc.	power	renewablescap	2015	12141.70	MW	AS
3	renewables inc.	power	renewablescap	2016	12538.63	MW	AS
3	renewables inc.	power	renewablescap	2017	12935.55	MW	AS
3	renewables inc.	power	renewablescap	2018	13332.48	MW	AS

Notice that, while the data itself is based on information at the physical asset-level, it has already been aggregated to the company level (by ownership stake). In this sense, the data is not at the “Asset-Level” but rather the “Company-Level”. We therefor consider “Asset-Based Company Data” to be a more accurate name for the data provided.

---

1. https://www.transitionmonitor.com/pacta-for-banks-2020/methodology-and-supporting-materials/↩