The Role
Research and structure physical and transition climate-risk parameters for modeling libraries. Responsibilities include evaluating scientific, regulatory, and public data sources; cleaning and documenting datasets; defining parameters, proxies, hazards, scenarios, and sector factors; checking global coverage; supporting model integration, quality review, versioning, and presenting recommendations. The role requires climate-related academic knowledge, emissions and scenario expertise, and depth in either physical or transition risk.
Summary Generated by Built In
Role Description:
What is the Parameter Library?
Key Responsibilities:
Requirements
You will help build the climate risk parameter library that underpins the physical and transition risk models in its climate risk solution. You will turn climate science, regulation and sector knowledge into a structured, sourced and versioned set of parameters that the models can run on.
What is the Parameter Library?
The parameter library is the set of hazards, drivers, scenarios, sector and asset factors, thresholds and reference values that our models use to calculate climate risk. Its quality decides how credible, comparable and traceable every result is. The library must give global coverage of assets and sectors, and serve multiple client streams and use cases from a single, consistent base.
In this role, you will help build and extend two libraries.
1. Physical risk parameter libraryThe physical risk library needs to cover the key modelling areas below, for assets and sectors worldwide:
- Acute and chronic climate hazards, with definitions, metrics, units and return periods
- Climate scenarios and time horizons
- Asset and location exposure across asset types and sectors
- Vulnerability and damage functions that link hazard intensity to asset and business impact
- Adaptation and resilience factors that reduce risk
- Translation of physical impacts into financial impact
The transition risk library needs to cover the key modelling areas below, across global sectors and jurisdictions:
- Policy, legal, technology, market and reputation drivers
- Transition scenarios and pathways, including carbon and energy price assumptions
- Sector and asset sensitivity to the low-carbon transition
- Company-level indicators such as emissions intensity, targets and energy mix
- Proxies where company-level data is limited
- Translation of transition impacts into financial impact
You will research, define, source and structure parameters in these areas, working closely with the Head of Climate Risk Research, who guides priorities and reviews every release of the library.
Key Responsibilities:
- Research and evaluate data sources and scientific literature, regulations and frameworks relevant to physical and transition climate risk.
- Pull, clean and structure datasets from those sources, and prepare them so they can be used as inputs in the physical and transition risk models.
- Build and maintain parameters for the physical and transition risk libraries, in line with the modelling areas above.
- Document each parameter with a clear definition, unit, source, date and citation.
- Check coverage across geographies, asset types and sectors, and flag gaps and proxy options.
- Work with research, product and engineering colleagues so parameters can be used directly in the models.
- Support quality review, versioning and documentation of the library.
- Present findings and recommendations to the Head of Climate Risk Research and the wider team.
Requirements
- Hands-on experience working with datasets: cleaning, joining, checking and documenting tabular data, and ideally geospatial or time-series data, in Excel or Google Sheets (Python or SQL is a plus).
- Ability to research and identify data sources, such as scientific and public databases, agency portals, company disclosures and published reports, and to judge their coverage, resolution, date, licensing and credibility.
- Ability to pull data from these sources (downloads, APIs or tables in reports) and prepare it in consistent, well-documented structures.
- Ability to apply datasets to physical and transition risk modelling: understanding how a dataset becomes a model input, choosing suitable proxies where data is limited, and flagging the limits of what a dataset can support.
- Academic background in a climate-related field, such as climate science, atmospheric or earth sciences, hydrology, environmental science, geography, energy, emissions accounting, sustainability, or climate economics and policy, shown through a degree, coursework, a thesis or research projects.
- Working knowledge of climate and emissions concepts: greenhouse gas emissions and inventories, emissions scopes, emissions intensity, climate scenarios and pathways, and acute versus chronic hazards.
- Ability to use this background to analyse physical and transition risk, for example judging which hazards or transition drivers matter for which assets and sectors.
- Depth in at least one of physical risk or transition risk.
- Preferred background in:
- Familiarity with frameworks such as TCFD, ISSB (IFRS S2), NGFS scenarios and PCAF.
- Exposure to GIS or geospatial data, or to climate datasets (NetCDF, rasters).
- Python or SQL for cleaning, joining and checking larger datasets.
- Understanding of credit and financial risk concepts, such as probability of default, collateral valuation and sector exposure.
Skills Required
- Hands-on experience cleaning, joining, checking, and documenting tabular datasets in Excel or Google Sheets
- Experience with geospatial or time-series data is preferred
- Ability to research and evaluate scientific databases, agency portals, company disclosures, and published reports
- Ability to assess data coverage, resolution, date, licensing, and credibility
- Ability to pull data through downloads, APIs, or report tables and structure it consistently
- Ability to apply datasets to physical and transition risk modeling and select suitable proxies
- Academic background in climate science, atmospheric or earth sciences, hydrology, environmental science, geography, energy, emissions accounting, sustainability, or climate economics and policy
- Working knowledge of greenhouse gas emissions, emissions inventories and scopes, emissions intensity, climate scenarios and pathways, and acute versus chronic hazards
- Ability to analyze physical and transition risks across assets and sectors
- Depth in at least one of physical risk or transition risk
- Familiarity with TCFD, ISSB IFRS S2, NGFS scenarios, and PCAF
- Exposure to GIS, geospatial data, or climate datasets such as NetCDF and rasters
- Python or SQL experience for cleaning, joining, and checking larger datasets
- Understanding of credit and financial risk concepts, including probability of default, collateral valuation, and sector exposure
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The Company
What We Do
GIST Impact is a leading impact data and analytics provider that has been measuring and quantifying impact for more than 15 years. With a team of 100+ scientists, engineers, data scientists and ecological and environmental economists, GIST Impact delivers market-leading impact platforms and datasets, covering 12,800+ companies with geographically precise, time-series data. GIST Impact works with pioneering companies across all sectors and with investors representing over $8 trillion in assets under management. GIST Impact also partners with some of the world's largest ESG data providers, business networks, and fintech platforms to enable impact measurement across global markets.
