VERITE 40 INDEX
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What is the Vérité 40 index?
The Vérité 40 Index is the application of Axylia's Carbon Score® to French companies listed on the stock exchange.
Current indices are based on market capitalization but do not reflect the environmental impacts of companies. This is why Axylia has chosen to establish its own index in order to guide investors and individuals towards companies whose creation of financial value covers the damage of CO2 on the environment.
The starting universe is made up of the 120 largest listed French companies. The Carbon Score® is calculated for each of them. The companies are then sorted in descending order of carbon-adjusted market capitalization. We retain the top 40 in the Truth Index40.
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How is the Vérité 40 index calculated?
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From the top 120 market capitalisations, we proceed to determine the Vérité 40 as follows:
CO2 emissions are calculated from Trucost data, incorporating all scopes, including scope 3, which represents on average 80% of a company's emissions.
These CO2 emissions are multiplied by the cost of carbon published by the IPCC, i.e. €113/ton to obtain the carbon bill.
This carbon bill is deducted from the company's EBITDA to give the "carbon adjusted" EBITDA.
The carbon-adjusted EBITDA is related to the EBITDA in order to deduce the financial risk (in %) related to Carbon that weighs on the company's profitability.
This financial risk is converted into an Axylia Carbon Score ® which varies from A to F.
The higher the risk, the closer the company's Carbon Score is to F.
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For greater transparency, Axylia carries out three different checks:
Check 1: The financial sector
10% of companies excluded
Trucost does not yet include the impact of investments and financing in its scope 3 calculation.
According to the CDP, the banks' scope 3 emissions represent 93% of their total emissions.
Scope 3 published by the financial sector is therefore considered incomplete, this sector is discarded.
Check 2: The advertising industry
2% of companies excluded
The carbon footprint of products promoted by advertising is not yet taken into account by Trucost.
Consequently, the scope 3 of companies in the sector represents on average only 0.5% of their total emissions.
This very low percentage leads us to exclude this sector.
Check 3: Sector anomaly
8% of companies excluded
The analysis shows that the companies which publish the highest volume emissions are those which carry out the most exhaustive accounts.
Consequently, a company which has a scope 3 which is significantly lower than the average for its sector, presents an incomplete statement of its emissions. Axylia pushes it aside.
This control results in the removal of 23% of the companies from the initial universe.
If a company does not pass the "check", its Carbon Score is ND.
Applying the Carbon Score® to the 40 largest current market capitalisations allows us to obtain the breakdown opposite. It appears that less than half of these companies can pay their carbon bill ( list of graduates ).
This is why the majority of companies featured in Axylia's Vérité 40 Index not at the top of current benchmarks.
NB : this is version 1.0 of the Vérité 40 Index constructed from the sole criterion of the Carbon score described below. It is a base that can be the subject of specific exclusions (tobacco, alcohol, weapons, breaches of international treaties, etc.) desired by an investor.
Axylia is already preparing updates to the Vérité 40 Index.
We can build a Vérité 40 index in accordance with your specifications.
You can send us a message from the Contact page.
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A partir de là, quatre critères sont appliqués pour décider de l'éligibilité :
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Les entreprises ayant des scores D, E, F ou ND sont exclues.
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Nous sélectionnons un nombre équivalent d'entreprises dans le Vérité40 et dans le CAC40 pour chaque secteur.
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Les plus grandes capitalisations boursières sont retenues, en complétant par les entreprises ayant des trajectoires SBTi.
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Dans les secteurs fortement représentés en nombre, une attention particulière est portée aux entreprises ayant significativement réduit leur facture carbone depuis 2020.*
* Il est important de noter que l'échantillon de base est restreint (France) et encore plus dans certains secteurs (il n'y en a que 11 selon la nomenclature du Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS)).
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Which companies will be excluded from the CAC40 in 2022?
As a result of these checks carried out by Axylia, these companies are rejected from the model because they have received an insufficient Carbon Score and therefore cannot pay their carbon bill.
The banking sector is mostly rated "ND", due to a real lack of transparency of the amount of their different scopes, and in particular that of scope 3.
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What about other companies?
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For the remaining companies, the carbon-adjusted market capitalisation is then calculated by multiplying the carbon-adjusted EBITDA by the ratio of the market capitalisation at 31/03/22 (adjusted for free float) to the original EBITDA.
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The companies are sorted in each of the 11 sectors of the international classification in descending order of carbon-adjusted market capitalisation. We select the top 35 companies according to the sectoral breakdown of the CAC40.
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The last 5 places in the Vérité40 are awarded to excluded companies with a Score of D, E and F but who improve their score in 2025. The 2025 Carbon Score is calculated by taking the consensus EBITDA in 2025 (source S&P IQ) from which the 2025 carbon bill is deducted: CO2 emissions from the 3 scopes in 2020 corrected for CO2 reduction commitments for the year 2025 multiplied by the price of CO2 in 2025 (€150 per tonne).
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The 5 companies selected are those that make the most effort and improve their Carbon Score to reach A, B or C.
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The Vérité 40 Index
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The Vérité 40 is then made up of only "positive" Carbon Score companies (A, B or C) and the top 5 Dynamic Carbon Score 2025.
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18 companies were therefore excluded from the CAC40 and this is why the majority of the companies in Axylia's Vérité40 are not at the top of the current benchmarks.
