IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v676y2025ics0378437125005102.html

Hedging carbon risk with a network approach

Author

Listed:
  • Azzone, Michele
  • Pocelli, Maria Chiara
  • Stocco, Davide

Abstract

Sustainable investing involves the incorporation of environmental and social factors into the decision-making processes. We propose a novel methodology based on the Triangulated Maximally Filtered Graph and node2vec algorithms to construct an hedging portfolio for climate risk, represented by various risk factors, among which the CO2 and the ESG ones. The CO2 factor is strongly correlated consistently over time with the Utility sector, which is the most carbon intensive in the S&P 500 index. Conversely, identifying a group of sectors linked to the ESG factor proves challenging. As a consequence, while it is possible to obtain an efficient hedging portfolio strategy with our methodology for the carbon factor, the same cannot be achieved for the ESG one. The ESG scores appears to be an indicator too broadly defined for market applications. These results support the idea that bank capital requirements should take into account carbon risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Azzone, Michele & Pocelli, Maria Chiara & Stocco, Davide, 2025. "Hedging carbon risk with a network approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 676(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:676:y:2025:i:c:s0378437125005102
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2025.130858
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437125005102
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.physa.2025.130858?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barfuss, Wolfram & Massara, Guido Previde & Di Matteo, T. & Aste, Tomaso, 2016. "Parsimonious modeling with information filtering networks," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68860, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Naffa, Helena & Fain, Máté, 2022. "A factor approach to the performance of ESG leaders and laggards," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    3. Bang, Jeongseok & Ryu, Doojin & Webb, Robert I., 2023. "ESG controversy as a potential asset-pricing factor," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).
    4. Rajna Gibson Brandon & Philipp Krueger & Peter Steffen Schmidt, 2021. "ESG Rating Disagreement and Stock Returns," Financial Analysts Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(4), pages 104-127, October.
    5. Paulo Ferreira & Oussama Tilfani & Éder Pereira & Cleónidas Tavares & Hernane Pereira & My Youssef El Boukfaoui, 2021. "Dynamic Connectivity in a Financial Network Using Time-Varying DCCA Correlation Coefficients," Econometric Research in Finance, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis, vol. 6(1), pages 57-75.
    6. Batten, Jonathan A. & Kinateder, Harald & Szilagyi, Peter G. & Wagner, Niklas F., 2018. "Addressing COP21 using a stock and oil market integration index," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 127-136.
    7. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Narayan, Seema & Sharma, Susan Sunila, 2013. "An analysis of commodity markets: What gain for investors?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 3878-3889.
    8. Bradford Cornell, 2021. "ESG preferences, risk and return," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 27(1), pages 12-19, January.
    9. Monica Billio & Michele Costola & Iva Hristova & Carmelo Latino & Loriana Pelizzon, 2021. "Inside the ESG ratings: (Dis)agreement and performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(5), pages 1426-1445, September.
    10. Wang, Zhen & Yan, Haoben & Gao, Xue & Liang, Qiaomei & Mi, Zhifu & Liu, Lancui, 2024. "Have consumption-based CO2 emissions in developed countries peaked?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    11. Pang, Raymond Ka-Kay & Granados, Oscar M. & Chhajer, Harsh & Legara, Erika Fille T., 2021. "An analysis of network filtering methods to sovereign bond yields during COVID-19," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 574(C).
    12. Perera, Kasun & Kuruppuarachchi, Duminda & Kumarasinghe, Sriyalatha & Suleman, Muhammad Tahir, 2023. "The impact of carbon disclosure and carbon emissions intensity on firms' idiosyncratic volatility," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    13. Billio, Monica & Getmansky, Mila & Lo, Andrew W. & Pelizzon, Loriana, 2012. "Econometric measures of connectedness and systemic risk in the finance and insurance sectors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 535-559.
    14. Avramov, Doron & Cheng, Si & Lioui, Abraham & Tarelli, Andrea, 2022. "Sustainable investing with ESG rating uncertainty," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 642-664.
    15. David Vidal-Tom'as & Antonio Briola & Tomaso Aste, 2023. "FTX's downfall and Binance's consolidation: The fragility of centralised digital finance," Papers 2302.11371, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    16. Raymond Ka-Kay Pang & Oscar Granados & Harsh Chhajer & Erika Fille Legara, 2020. "An analysis of network filtering methods to sovereign bond yields during COVID-19," Papers 2009.13390, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.
    17. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2015. "A five-factor asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 1-22.
    18. Shi, Guiqiang & Shen, Dehua & Zhu, Zhaobo, 2024. "Herding towards carbon neutrality: The role of investor attention," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    19. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    20. Andrea Ferro & Daniele Marazzina & Davide Stocco, 2025. "Uncovering ESG Ratings: The (Im)Balance of Aspirational and Performance Features," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(5), pages 5895-5917, September.
    21. Florian Berg & Julian F Kölbel & Roberto Rigobon, 2022. "Aggregate Confusion: The Divergence of ESG Ratings [Corporate social responsibility and firm risk: theory and empirical evidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(6), pages 1315-1344.
    22. Liu, Fengqi & Kang, Yuxin & Guo, Kun & Sun, Xiaolei, 2021. "The relationship between air pollution, investor attention and stock prices: Evidence from new energy and polluting sectors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    23. Pawel Witkowski & Adam Adamczyk & Slawomir Franek, 2021. "Does Carbon Risk Matter? Evidence of Carbon Premium in EU Energy-Intensive Companies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-18, March.
    24. Pedersen, Lasse Heje & Fitzgibbons, Shaun & Pomorski, Lukasz, 2021. "Responsible investing: The ESG-efficient frontier," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 572-597.
    25. Chen, Hanxiao & Zheng, Xiaolong & Zeng, Daniel Dajun, 2020. "Analyzing the co-movement and its spatial–temporal patterns in Chinese stock market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 555(C).
    26. Bolton, Patrick & Kacperczyk, Marcin, 2021. "Do investors care about carbon risk?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 517-549.
    27. Michele Azzone & Emilio Barucci & Davide Stocco, 2024. "Asset management with an ESG mandate," Papers 2403.11622, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    28. Lioui, Abraham & Tarelli, Andrea, 2022. "Chasing the ESG factor," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    29. Vidal-Tomás, David & Briola, Antonio & Aste, Tomaso, 2023. "FTX's downfall and Binance's consolidation: the fragility of centralised digital finance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119902, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    30. Flora, Maria & Tankov, Peter, 2023. "Green investment and asset stranding under transition scenario uncertainty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Azzone, Michele & Barucci, Emilio & Stocco, Davide, 2026. "Asset management with an ESG mandate," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michele Azzone & Maria Chiara Pocelli & Davide Stocco, 2023. "Hedging carbon risk with a network approach," Papers 2311.12450, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    2. Alves, Rómulo & Krüger, Philipp & van Dijk, Mathijs, 2025. "Drawing up the bill: Are ESG ratings related to stock returns around the world?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    3. Horn, Matthias & Oehler, Andreas, 2024. "Constructing stock portfolios by sorting on ESG ratings: Does the rating provider matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 96(PA).
    4. Rudkin, Wanling & Cai, Charlie X. & Zhou, You, 2025. "Can we enhance investment with ESG?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    5. Horn, Matthias & Oehler, Andreas & Dabbous, Amal & Croutzet, Alexandre, 2025. "The relation between environmental awareness and stock returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Massimo Postiglione & Cristian Carini & Alberto Falini, 2024. "ESG and firm value: A hybrid literature review on cost of capital implications from Scopus database," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(6), pages 6457-6480, November.
    7. Azzone, Michele & Barucci, Emilio & Stocco, Davide, 2026. "Asset management with an ESG mandate," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    8. Muck, Matthias & Schmidl, Thomas, 2024. "Comparing ESG score weighting approaches and stock performance differentiation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 67(PB).
    9. Tristan Jourde & Arthur Stalla-Bourdillon, 2026. "Environmental preferences and sector valuations," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 162(1), pages 45-85, February.
    10. Prodosh Eugene Simlai, 2025. "Non-Pecuniary Risk, ESG Ratings, and Expected Stock Returns," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-24, August.
    11. Horky, Florian & Pasquali, Andrea & Magazzino, Cosimo, 2024. "ESG rating disagreement portfolios – Evidence from the EuroStoxx 600," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(PA).
    12. Oehler, Andreas & Horn, Matthias, 2025. "Contemporaneous ESG ratings and idiosyncratic stock risk: Empirical evidence on measures of market consensus and dispersion," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    13. Alkan, Doga & Ayari, Rayan & Paraschiv, Florentina, 2026. "Green fees: Sustainability impacts on portfolio management," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    14. Eleonora Salzmann, 2025. "Disaggregated ESG Risk in European Asset Pricing Based on ESG Leaders Data," ACTA VSFS, University of Finance and Administration, vol. 19(2), pages 204-233.
    15. Luo, Di & Farag, Hisham, 2024. "ESG and aggregate disagreement," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    16. Sirin, Selahattin Murat & Yilmaz, Berna N., 2025. "Tech firms and the renewable energy sector: Exploring the moderating effects of institutional ownership on financial connectedness," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    17. Berle, Erika & He, Wanwei (Angela) & Ødegaard, Bernt Arne, 2025. "The stock market and corporate consequences of ethical exclusions by the world’s largest fund," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    18. Vu, Thanh Nam & Junttila, Juha-Pekka & Lehkonen, Heikki, 2024. "ESG news and long-run stock returns," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    19. Lars Hornuf & Gül Yüksel, 2022. "The Performance of Socially Responsible Investments: A Meta-Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 9724, CESifo.
    20. Zou, Jin & Yan, Jingzhou & Deng, Guoying, 2023. "ESG rating confusion and bond spreads," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:676:y:2025:i:c:s0378437125005102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.