Product harnessing generative AI is first of its kind dedicated to providing real-time, transparent responses on the ESG data of portfolio companies.
Iceberg Data Lab (“IDL”), the independent green fintech providing science-based environmental data solutions for financial institutions, today announced the launch of the world’s first ESG AI assistant “Barbatus”. The new product harnesses generative AI technology to generate real-time, text-based and fully sourced explanations in response to questions regarding the ESG data of portfolio companies.
Barbatus is trained to extract and provide structured information from unstructured text sitting within IDL’s diversified, comprehensive dataset, which covers over 2,300 different products and services. The ESG AI assistant offers a number of solutions for professionals in the financial services industry, including allowing ESG Analysts to interpret results more effectively, improve benchmarking and enhance their understanding of how corporates can decrease their environmental impact. CSR teams can also analyse their own business’ or sector’s environmental impact to answer regulators’ requests.
Matthieu Maurin, co-Founder and CEO of Iceberg Data Lab, commented: “We’re extremely proud to be launching our innovative Barbatus product, the first AI assistant of its kind dedicated to ESG analysis, which we believe will be game-changing for the finance industry.
“The name Barbatus, a near-threatened bird of prey, reflects the greater threat we are facing on planet Earth: a potential sixth mass extinction. At IDL, we name all of our tools after endangered animals to symbolize that the survival of all species, including humanity, will depend on the actions we take today towards making the sustainable transition a reality.
“Whilst financial institutions are demonstrating increased interest in ESG issues, reporting frameworks have simultaneously become increasingly complex. With Barbatus, we are responding to these issues by helping clients to analyse complex ESG data more quickly, transparently and effectively, so they can better understand the impact of their investments on the environment, whilst directly enabling and accelerating their own transition journeys.”
Barbatus is the latest product developed by IDL, which was founded in 2015 by CEO Matthieu Maurin and CTO Pierre-Olivier Haye in response to the growing demand from financial institutions for quality and science-based environmental company data. IDL’s proprietary impact calculation platform simplifies data to provide a holistic life cycle analysis of the environmental impact of portfolio companies (including Scope 1, 2 and 3, upstream and downstream).
Pierre Olivier-Haye, co-Founder and CTO of Iceberg Data Lab, added: “Every day, new use cases are born out of generative AI. Our Barbatus product is one of the latest leading examples and we believe this technology has significant potential to change the future of financial services. By integrating our powerful new tool, our clients can improve the quality of their reporting and decision-making, spending less time carrying out lengthy, repetitive tasks, and more time focusing on quality control and qualitative analysis.
“Whilst generative AI has seen significant breakthroughs in the past year, one of our main issues with existing products on the market is the lack of transparency they offer. Barbatus represents a new generation of generative AI, letting our clients know exactly the page, the paragraph and the source from which our chatbot has extracted information to answer any question. Our team of tech experts ensured transparency remained a priority feature when building the product, which is crucial for corporate governance responsibilities as well as responding to industry allegations of greenwashing with substantiated data.”
IDL’s existing suite of products measures and monitors crucial environmental metrics of portfolio companies, such as carbon and corporate biodiversity footprints, across all sectors and geographies. This analysis supports clients to drive investment and risk management strategies, build indexes and funds, develop Environmental Impact Reporting, manage stewardship responsibilities and more.
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