Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. today announced that it has signed a three-year deal with The Carbon Disclosure Project that will see Merrill support the growth of the CDP.

The CDP is a collaboration of 385 institutional investors with assets under management of US$57 trillion. Each year it sends out a request to over 3,000 companies globally on behalf of investors asking companies to measure and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and report on their strategy for dealing with risks and opportunities associated with climate change.

With today’s deal, Merrill Lynch will play a key role in supporting CDP’s development and growth worldwide over the next three years. It will help consolidate CDP operations in current regions, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, and launch 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.

“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,” said CDP’s CEO, Paul Dickinson.

“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,” he added.

Merrill Lynch president & COO, Greg Fleming, said, “As a founding partner of CDP, Merrill Lynch is proud to support the expansion of this critical and unique organization. CDP is the gold standard for carbon disclosure methodology and we are proud to partner with them as we pursue environmental excellence for our firm and our clients.”