Open Data

Awesome Sustainable Finance

Awesome Sustainable Finance

A curated list of sustainable finance resources

Reading Time: 4 min.
An Awesome List for Sustainable Finance. Awesome Sustainable Finance is a curated list of sustainable finance resources. The focus of the list is on code (tools, libraries, frameworks etc.) that fairly directly support any type of sustainable finance effort but also open data that are useful in a sustainable finance context. Image Credit: StarwallOfRadical.town, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons How to Contribute The list is maintained on github so the easiest way to contribute is to open a Pull Request in our repository.
How Open Data and Open Source can support Green Public Procurement - Part 4

How Open Data and Open Source can support Green Public Procurement - Part 4

In the fourth part of this series we approach Green Public Procurement as a Sustainable Portfolio Management task and explore how open data can support this mission

Reading Time: 9 min.
Introduction In this fourth and final installment we will discuss how the data framework we have developed thus far can be mapped into classic portfolio management concepts and categories, and thus, how one can articulate the concept of sustainable procurement management on a portfolio basis. The concepts and analytic methodologies of financial portfolio management1 can significantly enhance the toolkit available to practitioners and, in sense, connects the domain of Green Public Procurement to other ongoing initiatives in broader Sustainable Finance.
How Open Data and Open Source can support Green Public Procurement - Part 3

How Open Data and Open Source can support Green Public Procurement - Part 3

In the third part of this series we illustrate how one may assign greenhouse gas emissions to public procurement using environmentally extended input-output models

Reading Time: 10 min.
Introduction This is the third in a series of posts where we explore the role of Open Data and Open Source in enabling and accelerating the broad based effort towards Green Public Procurement (GPP). In this third installment we will link procurement entities to private sector sellers and, through the sectoral profile of the procurement contract, (CPV category) we will infer the amount of CO2 emissions that can be attributed to these activities.
How Open Data and Open Source can support Green Public Procurement - Part 2

How Open Data and Open Source can support Green Public Procurement - Part 2

In the second part of this series we explore how to construct an economic network representation of the public procurement universe

Reading Time: 10 min.
Introduction This is the second in a series of posts where we explore the role of Open Data and Open Source in enabling and accelerating the broad based effort towards Green Public Procurement (GPP). Recap of the Previous Post Part 1 - Overview In the first part of this series we motivated and defined the scope of a study that explores Public Procurement data. We discussed the meaning of the main relevant terms (Open Data, Open Source, Green Public Procurement) and briefly reviewed the current state and challenges of the latter in EU context.
How Open Data and Open Source can support Green Public Procurement - Part 1

How Open Data and Open Source can support Green Public Procurement - Part 1

In the first part of this series we survey the TED procurement data landscape to build the context in which we will explore the relevance of this open data set for green public procurement

Reading Time: 13 min.
Introduction In a series of posts we will explore the role of Open Data and Open Source in enabling and accelerating the broad based effort towards Green Public Procurement (GPP). There are several important (and possibly obscure) terms in this sentence, so our first order of business will be to unpack them. What is Public Procurement Let us start with the term Public Procurement which will be the main domain of interest in this study.
Input-Output Models as Graph Networks

Input-Output Models as Graph Networks

We discuss the relation of economic input-output models with graph theory and networks

Reading Time: 15 min.
Motivation Fig 1. An economic network as a graph. The economy is a complex tangle of various agents that interact via transactions (sales and purchases) and contracts (lending, investing). In recent times more and more techniques from graph theory and network science are brought to bear on economic analysis. On the other hand, ever since the seminal contributions of Leontief, Input-Output Models (IO) have been widely used to describe economic relationships between economic actors (e.
Open Risk White Paper: Sustainable Portfolio Management - Attribution and Allocation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Open Risk White Paper: Sustainable Portfolio Management - Attribution and Allocation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

We develop an analytic framework that synthesizes current approaches to sustainable portfolio management in the context of addressing climate change. We discuss the different required information layers, approaches to emissions accounting, attribution and forward-looking limit frameworks implementing carbon budget constraints.

Reading Time: 3 min.
The frontpage graphic is adapted from Steffen et al. “Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet”. Science (2015). The Planetary Boundaries concept was proposed in 2009 by this group of Earth system and environmental scientists. The group suggested that finding a “safe operating space for humanity” is a precondition for sustainable development. The framework is based on scientific evidence that human actions since the Industrial Revolution have become the main driver of global environmental change.
Visualization of a Planet in Lockdown

Visualization of a Planet in Lockdown

We visualize global mobility patterns over a full year of pandemic induced lockdowns

Reading Time: 5 min.
Visualizing a year in lockdowns and restricted mobility As we move into February 2021 the world will be experiencing almost a year under pandemic conditions. This has markedly changed behavioral patterns of human mobility across the board. One major difference with previous pandemics is that through the use of a variety of digital technologies and new data collection channels we know have an unprecedented view of those changing mobility patterns.
A Global Mobility Index

A Global Mobility Index

We introduce a global mobility index that averages Google mobility data across all available countries (weighting by population) to provide an overall view of how the pandemic has influenced human mobility

Reading Time: 6 min.
Constructing a Global Mobility Index (GMI) In previous posts (here, and here) we introduced new Open Risk Dashboard functionalities that integrate COVID-19 community mobility data (currently focusing on the datasets provided by Google). As a reminder, these reports chart over time human mobility trends collected from mobile geolocation data. The granularity is by geography and across different categories of places / activities such as retail and recreation areas, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential areas.
21 Ways to Visualize a Timeseries

21 Ways to Visualize a Timeseries

We explore a variety of distinct ways to visualize the same simple dataset. The post is an excursion into the fundamentals of visualization - a partial deconstruction of the process that highlights some common techniques and associated issues.

Reading Time: 29 min.
What this blog post is about (and what it isn’t) With the ever more widespread adoption of Data Science tools (defined loosely as the intensive use of data in decision-making), there is a renewed interest in Visualization as an effective channel for humans to understand information at various stages of the data lifecycle. There is a large variety of data visualization tools which can produce an ever more bewildering variety of visualization types:
Comparing Google Community Mobility Reports Across Countries

Comparing Google Community Mobility Reports Across Countries

Reading Time: 5 min.
The community mobility reports and OpenCPM In a previous post we introduced new OpenCPM functionality that integrates COVID-19 community mobility data (currently from Google). The reports chart movement trends over time by geography, across different categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential. While these reports are unlikely to persist as open data sources in the long term, the current availability (as of May 2020) enables providing within OpenCPM a mobility data dashboard that can help draw insights through visualization and statistical analysis.
Exploring Community Mobility Reports Using OpenCPM

Exploring Community Mobility Reports Using OpenCPM

Reading Time: 7 min.
The community mobility reports and OpenCPM As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded technology providers (most notably Google and Apple) made available to the public aggregated and anonymized data about human mobility in the crisis period (on the basis of smartphone location data). These Community Mobility Reports provide insights into how mobility patterns changed in response both to pandemic news and policies aimed at combating COVID-19. The reports chart movement trends over time by geography, across different categories of locations and activities, such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential.
Making Open Risk Data easier

Making Open Risk Data easier

We introduce an online database that allows the (relatively) easy publication of structured risk data

Reading Time: 1 min.
Making Open Risk Data easier In an earlier blog post we discussed the promise of Open Risk Data and how the widespread availability of good information that is relevant for risk management can substantially help mitigate diverse risks. The list of Open Risk Data providers, particularly from public sector, keeps increasing and we are aiming to document all available datasets in the dedicated page of the Open Risk Manual. The trailblazing Wikidata project In this post we want to introduce another facility, an online database that allows the (relatively) easy publication of structured risk data.
Federated Credit Risk Models

Federated Credit Risk Models

Reading Time: 4 min.
The motivation for federated credit risk models Federated learning is a machine learning technique that is receiving increased attention in diverse data driven application domains that have data privacy concerns. The essence of the concept is to train algorithms across decentralized servers, each holding their own local data samples, hence without the need to exchange potentially sensitive information. The construction of a common model is achieved through the exchange of derived data (gradients, parameters, weights etc).
Visualization of large scale economic data sets

Visualization of large scale economic data sets

Reading Time: 3 min.
Visualization of large scale economic data sets Economic data are increasingly being aggregated and disseminated by Statistics Agencies and Central Banks using modern API’s (application programming interfaces) which enable unprecedented accessibility to wider audiences. In turn the availability of relevant information enables more informed decision-making by a variety of actors in both public and private sectors. An excellent example of such a modern facility is the European Central Bank’s Statistical Data Warehouse (SDW), an online economic data repository that provides features to access, find, compare, download and share the ECB’s published statistical information.
OpenNPL Database

OpenNPL Database

Reading Time: 2 min.
Motivation for Building an open source database based on EBA’s Standardized NPL Templates In an insightful recent piece, “Overcoming non-performing loan market failures with transaction platforms”, Fell et al. dug deeply into the market failures that help perpetuate the Non-performing loan (NPL) problem. They highlight, in particular, information asymmetries and the attendant costs of valuing NPL portfolios as key obstacles. In the same wavelength, the European Banking Authority published standardized NPL data templates as a step towards reducing the obstacles that prevent the reduction of NPL’s.
The Promise of Open Risk Data

The Promise of Open Risk Data

Reading Time: 3 min.
There is a legend that every time a data set is released into the open, somewhere dies a black swan The Promise of Open Risk Data Well, it is not a true legend. Legends take centuries of oral storytelling to form. In our frantic age, dominated by the daily news cycle and viral twitter storms, legends have been replaced by the rather more short-lived memes and #hashtags. Black Swans need no introductions The whole informal theory of black swans concerns improbable events (low likelihood events) that come as a nasty surprise and have large impact.
StatsNews: Aggregating Economic Open Data news

StatsNews: Aggregating Economic Open Data news

Reading Time: 1 min.
StatsNews: Aggregating Economic Open Data news StatsNews Version 1.3 of the RegNews Aggregator includes a separate stream of economic opendata news releases. Regnews is a web app developed by Open Risk to assist with keeping abreast with diverse financial regulatory news releases and publications. The app data are directly derived from the published regulatory RSS sheets (NB some are not conforming to RSS standards). If in doubt please refer to the original feeds (links provided).
Regnews: Financial Regulatory News Aggregation Version 1.2

Regnews: Financial Regulatory News Aggregation Version 1.2

Reading Time: 1 min.
Regnews: Financial Regulatory News Aggregation Version 1.2 The #RegNews Aggregator is a web app developed by Open Riskto assist with keeping abreast with diverse financial regulatory news releases and publications. The app data are directly derived from the published regulatory RSS sheets (NB some are not conforming to RSS standards). If in doubt please refer to the original feeds (links provided). Copyright of the publications is with the respective authoring institutions.
Risk Management Internship on the Cusp of a New Financial Era

Risk Management Internship on the Cusp of a New Financial Era

Reading Time: 3 min.
Risk Management Internship In finance, it’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times It is a special moment to start a career in financial services. We are walking amid the ruins of the previous financial order. Fallen banks, broken markets, negative interest rates, shell-shocked economies and discredited theoretical assumptions. We see the enormous cost and impact to the welfare of society of a less than perfect financial system which has not kept pace with the advancement of our general knowledge and technical capabilities in most other domains.