Measuring the Alignment of the Portfolio Emissions: A Kantitative Approach

How can we measure a portfolio’s climate alignment without hiding the moral choices embedded in the metrics?

In his new research paper, Vincent Bouchet (Director of ESG and Climate Research, Scientific Portfolio – an EDHEC Venture) proposes a fresh perspective: distinguishing what belongs to scientific standardization (methodological coherence, technical parameters) from what inevitably stems from ethical judgments (chosen emission scopes, distribution of the carbon budget across firms).

Three archetypes of “ethical investors”

To move beyond false consensus and make trade-offs explicit, the study introduces three archetypes of investors:

• The Principled investor – prioritizes fairness and shared duties, allocating the carbon budget based on moral principles.
• The Utilitarian investor – seeks to maximize real emission reductions where marginal impact is highest.
• The Harmonist investor – aims to balance equity, efficiency, and sectoral feasibility through pragmatic compromise.

Applied to a diversified equity portfolio, these ethical lenses barely change the overall alignment score, but they radically reshape results in climate-critical sectors such as energy, materials, and transport—where emission trajectories, scopes, and carbon budget allocation methods make all the difference.

“I deliberately limited the ethical principles to well-known concepts and bent them to today’s practical questions. This work is exploratory: it aims to open the discussion on the unavoidable ethical dimension of our tools—without losing sight of action.”
— Vincent Bouchet

Why it matters

• Metric transparency – Making “design choices” (scenarios, scopes, aggregation rules) visible prevents non-comparable results and accusations of greenwashing.
• Actionable decisions – Understanding where ethics influence measurement helps asset managers, regulators, and data providers document and justify their methodologies.
• Methodological convergence – Insights from the CAPA project (ILB × Scientific Portfolio) show that some assumptions—such as time horizon, projection method, or denominators—strongly affect results, highlighting the need for a robust sensitivity framework.

Launch webinar

A 40-minute webinar (in English) featuring Vincent Bouchet and moderated by Stéphane Voisin will present the main takeaways:

• Unpack the ethical choices embedded in portfolio alignment methodologies.
• See how different ethical perspectives reshape results at sector and company levels.
• Discuss implications for investors, regulators, and practitioners seeking transparency and comparability.

➡️ Register on Microsoft Teams:
https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/5cdf1005-c009-4fed-a6a0-7ee311f04081@15c185cf-bb12-45d5-bcd3-6ba3057b70f6