The Carbon Disclosure Project announced a three-year global partnership with Merrill Lynch to help support CDP's development and growth in China and around the world.

Paul Dickinson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project, said in a prepared statement, "This global partnership will help CDP to build on its current success in creating a unified business response to climate change. As regulations on greenhouse gas emissions tighten, CDP data will become increasingly useful to help guide investment models. We hope other leading global institutions will follow Merrill Lynch's lead in working with CDP as part of a Consortium of Global Partners."

CDP is a collaboration of 385 institutional investors with assets under management of US$57 trillion, making it the world's largest investor collaboration on climate change. Each year, it sends out a request to over 3,000 companies globally on behalf of investors, including Merrill Lynch, AXA, Allianz, ANZ, Banco do Brazil, Mitsubishi UFJ, AIG Investments, the RBS Group and HSBC. The request asks companies to measure and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and report on their strategy for dealing with risks and opportunities associated with climate change.

As a global partner, Merrill Lynch will play a key role in supporting CDP's development and growth worldwide over the next three years. Merrill Lynch's global reach will be invaluable in consolidating CDP operations in current regions, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, and in launching in new regions such as China and Korea. It will also help increase focus on the vital role that investors play in driving financial flows into low-carbon solutions.

CDP will benefit from Merrill Lynch's expertise in capital markets, carbon trading, investment banking, and advisory services to accelerate the collection and disclosure of key corporate climate change data from more and more companies. It will also play an important part in enabling CDP to pursue new projects to expand the CDP reach and to raise awareness of the importance of corporate climate change reporting and accounting.