This infrastructure investment special issue of the EDHEC Infrastructure & Private Assets Research Institute Research Insights supplement to Investment & Pensions Europe, which aims to provide institutional investors with an academic research perspective on one of the most pressing issues facing them today.

We first look at the use of data to produce a benchmark or comparable (‘comp’) of the climate risks of infrastructure companies. Few data points are available for comparable assets and a typical ‘comparable’ can look very ad-hoc and unrepresentative if it is based on fewer than a dozen data points. We discuss EDHECinfra & Private Assets data that is both granular and robust.

We then present a model that intertwines financial and macro-economic variables with Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) scenarios to make asset-level, scenario-dependent projections until 2050 of financial indicators such as revenues, profits, discount rates and valuation.

We summarise the findings of a new paper in which we examine the public’s sentiment toward wind power generation in the United States and the United Kingdom. Monitoring public attitudes towards infrastructure sectors is necessary to detect changes in public opinion, intervene promptly and ensure projects can develop without interruptions. However, monitoring public opinions remains a challenge. Our study applies Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to analyse various text sources and to provide the infrastructure industry with novel social acceptance indices that indicate public support and social risk factors.

Finally, we present a new study by EDHECinfra & Private Assets, which indicates that $1.6trn of the European infrastructure asset class (European Economic Area and the UK) by size is likely to qualify as sustainable under the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities, while only $10bn of assets by size is likely to have no sustainable characteristics and could be stranded in the transition to a low-carbon economy. An additional $235bn of infrastructure is not aligned with the EU taxonomy’s definition of sustainability.

We wish you an enjoyable read and extend our warmest thanks to IPE for their collaboration on the supplement.