As financial institutions accelerate their transition to net zero, the quality, consistency, and credibility of emissions data have become critical success factors. Nowhere is this more apparent than in automotive manufacturing and lending investments. Despite growing commitment to sustainable investment, financial institutions face a critical challenge due to the lack of reliable emissions data. Here, we look at the current challenges affecting financial institutions and how JATO is helping to fill in the essential data gaps needed.

Why accurate emissions reporting matters

The Financial Times reported in December 2024 that investment managers are working with ‘one hand tied behind their backs’ due to insufficient high-quality, comprehensive data on companies’ ESG performance. This data gap manifests in several ways:

Inconsistent measurement methods: Without standardised methodologies for calculating emissions within the automotive sector, comparing data across different manufacturers becomes nearly impossible. One country reports emissions differently than another based on the norm applicable to the country, making like-for-like comparisons unreliable.

Missing coverage: Many regions, particularly in emerging markets, have incomplete or unavailable emissions metrics. These blind spots undermine portfolio assessments and feedback from ESG teams are they spend too much time checking and backfilling missing data from their sources, which makes it difficult to understand the full environmental impact of investments.

Scope 3 challenges: While direct emissions from operations are relatively straightforward to track, Scope 3 emissions — those occurring throughout the value chain — remain notoriously difficult to capture accurately. Yet these often represent the largest portion of a company’s carbon footprint.

Closing the gap

To make truly informed investment decisions in the automotive sector, financial institutions require more than fragmented data points, they need comprehensive, actionable intelligence. Several capabilities are essential:

Global coverage: Emissions metrics must span all relevant markets, including regions with limited reporting infrastructure. Partial data creates incomplete pictures that can lead to misguided investment decisions.

Robust modelling tools: Financial institutions need reliable data that consolidates historical records while supporting future forecasting. Without this, tracking progress towards net-zero targets becomes guesswork rather than measurement.

Consistency and comparability: Data delivered in consistent formats across companies enables accurate tracking and meaningful benchmarking. Standardisation transforms raw numbers into strategic insights.

Regulatory alignment: As frameworks like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) continues to evolve, financial institutions need tools that simplify compliance and ensure portfolios meet emerging requirements.

The JATO solution

JATO works closely with some of the world’s leading financial institutions to support and deliver unparalleled global emissions intelligence, covering 92% of global WLTP data coverage.

This includes:

• Enhanced WLTP modelling for markets where official test cycle data is unavailable or incomplete.
  
  
• Consistent, normalised methodologies applied across regions, vehicle types, and time horizons.
  
  
• Deep historical data consolidation, enabling accurate back‑testing, benchmarking, and validation of decarbonisation progress.

By combining granular vehicle‑level insight with global market expertise, JATO provides a single, trusted source of truth, bridging data gaps and transforming complexity into clarity.

With JATO’s data and expertise, financial institutions can:

• Create a robust, quantitative metric to support their automotive manufacturing and lending investments risk appetite statement.
  
  
• Validate historical performance and confidently set measurable, defensible future targets.
  
  
• Demonstrate tangible progress towards net-zero commitments - strengthening credibility with regulators, investors, and internal stakeholders.
  
  
• Embed ESG considerations into strategic decision‑making, rather than treating emissions reporting as a standalone compliance exercise.

Most importantly, financial institutions gain the confidence to align their automotive manufacturing and lending investments activities with their sustainability ambitions, backed by data that could withstand regulatory scrutiny and stakeholder challenge.

Final thoughts

Sustainability will continue to rise in importance as regulatory pressures intensify and consumer expectations evolve. In an already complex operating environment, the need for accurate, reliable, and consistent emissions data cannot be overstated.

Financial institutions and businesses must navigate shifting regulations, evolving disclosure standards, and increasingly granular reporting requirements - particularly in high‑impact sectors such as automotive. Without access to high‑quality data, organisations risk making poorly informed decisions that undermine both their sustainability objectives and regulatory compliance.

Partnering with a trusted data provider is essential to overcoming these challenges. By leveraging global data coverage, robust modelling, and consistent methodologies, financial institutions can not only ensure compliance, but unlock deeper insight, improve capital allocation, and drive meaningful environmental impact.