Financial Competences Ontology
The Financial Competences Ontology (FCO) is a semantic web framework that aims to represent and categorize financial competences. FCO is described using W3C RDF Schema and the Web Ontology Language OWL. FCO aims to conform as closely as possible to the European Union/OECD (2022) Financial Competence Framework for adults.
Business Model Risk Ontology
The Business Model Risk Ontology is a framework that aims to represent and categorize knowledge about Business Models, in particular their Risk profile.
Credit Ratings Ontology
The Credit Ratings Ontology is a framework that aims to represent and categorize knowledge about Credit Rating Agencies and related data (Credit Ratings) using semantic web information technologies.
Description of a (Risk) Model Ontology
The Description of a (Risk) Model Ontology is a framework that aims to represent and categorize knowledge about risk models using semantic web information technologies. The Risk Model Ontology, codenamed Description of a Model (DOAM) codifies the relationship between the various components of a risk model universe.
Non-Performing Loan Ontology
The Non-Performing Loan Ontology is a framework that aims to represent and categorize knowledge about non-performing loans using semantic web information technologies.
Risk Function Ontology
The Risk Function Ontology is a framework that aims to represent and categorize knowledge about risk management functions. Codenamed RFO, it codifies the relationship (roles and responsibilities) between the various persons involved in a risk management organization.
The environmental impact of data centers is currently a topic of much discussion. In the second post of this series we look into the methodologies that are being used to analyse environmental impacts, with a view to create a uniform calculation framework that aims to minimize proprietary data.
In the first post of a series dedicated to the measurement of data center environmental footprints we reviewed the conceptual thought frameworks and challenges. We found that even as data centers are evolving and growing to become material aspects of the economy in both financial and environmental impact senses, there is confusion about terminology, lack of transparency about environmental impact measurements, poorly developed methodologies, and significant uncertainties. The main objective in this second post is to outline and document the current measurement methodologies and express their quantitative prescriptions in mathematical form.
The environmental impact of ever larger and ever more data centers is currently a topic of heated discussion. In this post we take a step back and look into the overall landscape of environmental reporting of digital economy footprints, sketching the big picture of what is being calculated, and reported and highlighting some challenges associated with this task.
Concern about the environmental footprint of data center infrastructure is relatively new.1 In the early stages of the sustainability movement the volume of digital infrastructure deployed in data centers was dwarfed by the environmental impacts of other, much more mature industrial sectors (e.g., transport, manufacturing, agriculture etc.). Hence even as milestones such as the Paris Agreement (2015) accelerated worldwide efforts towards a sustainable economy, the Information and Communication Industry (ICT) sector received comparatively little attention.
In this post we explore the configuration space of possible social media platforms. We show that already with the known possible design choices there are multiple thousands of possibilities. Are better social media experiences to be found within this vast space or do we need an even more fundamental rethink? And how can we go about finding out?
Over the past two decades with the rapid diffusion of digital technologies billions of people changed behaviors. Almost everybody now is spending considerable time online, interacting with other people in newly invented social media. Diverse software platforms enable exchanges of all sorts of information over internet network infrastructures. Given the massive adoption there is little doubt that people derive meaningful utility from social media. At the same time a range of seriously negative impacts is becoming increasingly clear.
In this post we analyse the variability profile of reported financed emissions of financial institutions such as banks. Using a conceptual deed-dive into the calculation procedure we isolate the more fundamental factors that contribute to variability.
In this post we analyse the variability profile of reported financed emissions of financial institutions such as banks. The discussion will concern primarily loan portfolios but similar considerations apply to other capital instruments. Our context are the so-called Scope 3 - Category 15 emissions under the terminology of the GHG Protocol, namely the emissions of the companies being financed by the loan portfolio.
We discuss a simple, generic and portable format for disseminating Input-Output data. The format is inspired from the Graph representation of Input-Output matrices. It allows a flexible unified description which can be serialized into standard csv files and using a minimal sqlite database.
There are currently several important global initiatives that compile and make available statistical economic input-output data (IO). This is done typically on a multi-regional basis (covering many countries and regions, hence MRIO) reflecting the fact that international trade is (still) very much a reality. Environmentally extended input-output (EEIO) databases that are in turn based on economic activity IO data, are increasingly used to examine environmental footprints of economic activities and play an important role in the attribution and screening of regional and sectoral contributions to environmental stresses.
We discuss the concept of full stack risk management and how to acquire holistic knowledge of the many layers of processes and tools that are involved in modern, data driven risk management. We compare and contrast with the existing characterisation of full stack developers in software and the pros and cons of generalizing that pattern to risk management. We use an example from credit risk management to bring the various issues to life.
An Open Risk Academy user recently asked if there is a real-world, end-to-end open-source project (in particular, written in the popular data science language Python) that walks through the entire (risk model) workflow: namely, collecting data, engineering features, building a risk model, iteratively optimizing it, and drawing actionable conclusions. It is a very good question. For many people learning theory in the context of real-world practice is essential and such an end-to-end example obviously helps connect all the dots of data driven risk management. But like with all good questions, the answer is not simple. In this blog post we explore some of the issues involved in a broader context.
In this post we introduce a new online game that aims to familiarise with various challenging aspects of Green Public Procurement
The substantial potential of Green Public Procurement towards achieving sustainability objectives is well known. But the transition process involves significant complexity and implementation barriers. The combination of diverse categories of products and services, each with their own specific sustainability profiles and data/knowledge requirements and the need for augmented organizational capacities to handle expanded information flows is a formidable challenge. In a new and free online game we introduce some aspects of these challenges in a simplified, fun setting that helps highlight some of the considerations involved.
In this post we discuss on the possible uses of Kraljic Matrix concepts in the context of Green Public Procurement
Sustainable Public Procurement involves significant complexity and implementation barriers as it involves diverse categories of products and services, each with their own specific sustainability and knowledge requirements. It also requires augmented organizational capacities to handle expanded information flows that provide more holistic views on market capabilities and supply chain interdependencies.
In this post we endorse the UN Open Source principles and take stock on their implications for the domains of risk management and sustainable finance. We also take a step back and discuss how open source is an essential ingredient for the PODA manifesto, namely putting people above data and algorithms.
The UN Open Source Principles is a set of eight high-level guiding principles that were recently adopted by the UN Chief Executive Board’s Digital Technology Network (DTN). They open a new window and provide guidelines to drive collaboration and Open Source adoption within the UN and globally. They send a strong signal of the importance of open source and how individuals and organisations need to act to benefit but also support a thriving and sustainable open source community.
In this post we elaborate on the insights we can derive when using well established Environmentally-Extended Input-Output frameworks in a slightly different manner, as the canvas for monetary random walks "following the money"
We imagine the random propagation of money flows through simplified economic networks as a sequence of monetary transactions following a stochastic process. We follow the journey of a cash amount. Whenever a transaction in this chain implies an environmental impact, that impact is recorded and cumulated. Computing the expected outcome of such flows reproduces the standard results of environmentally extended input-output models. The random walk interpretation allows the computation of various additional statistical properties, one example being estimating a variance of environmental impact or intrinsic uncertainty around the central estimate. We interpret this uncertainty as being a concentration risk measure.
With a new software release we aim to make the Open Risk Manual more accessible by creating an Android app version. This post explains a bit more what this is about.
The Open Risk Manual is an open online repository of information (wiki) about risk management in all its forms. The Manual is developed and maintained by Open Risk. Our objective is to create a comprehensive, detailed, authoritative collection of risk management resources that are easily accessible by anybody, anywhere - well, network access is currently required!
In this post we are after a flexible financial services taxonomy that can help us understand both existing and evolving financial system developments. To this end we examine a range of existing classification systems and synthesize the salient requirements.
Our age is increasingly dominated by the dual challenges and opportunities of the sustainability transition on the one hand, and digital transformation on the other. We witness emerging new financial domains with novel names such as Fintech , or TechFin, or various combinations and hues of Green and Sustainable in Sustainable Finance and we see forces that are reshaping the direction of travel for the financial industry.
The Climate Dictionary Quiz is now accessible as a course at the Open Risk Academy. The Quiz is based on the UN Climate Dictionary and provides an interactive educational tool to enable deeper understanding of the essential terminology.
The Climate Dictionary is an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) aimed at providing people worldwide with a simplified guide to understand climate change. The Dictionary (first published Aug 2023) seeks to bridge the gap between complex scientific jargon such as present in the IPCC publications and other scientific bodies and the public.
New data models introduced in this release of Equinox cater to the requirement of integrating energy attribute certificate information into the portfolio database.
GHG Accounting offers a means of measuring the direct and indirect emissions to the Earth’s Biosphere of CO2 and its equivalent gases from industrial and other activities. GHG Accounting is a rapidly developing area that has come to receive increased focus in the context of accelerating Climate Change. Given that the generation of electricity and heat accounts for around a third of global GHG emissions electricity consumers have incentives to proactively reduce those emissions by reducing electricity demand, or by shifting energy supply by procuring alternative lower-carbon or renewable resources.