Search and navigate the Library

The Altiorem Library is designed to help you find credible, open-access content on sustainable finance and ESG issues quickly, confidently and in one place.

You can:

• Search by keyword, phrase or topic
• Apply filters using Altiorem’s taxonomy categories (e.g. sustainable finance practice, ESG issue, geography, SDG, finance relevance)
• Read research summaries to assess its relevance before reviewing the complete report
• Ask questions directly to reports using Alma, Altiorem’s AI-powered Research Assistant (free members get 5 questions a month; see “Ask Alma” below) — for example:
  • Does this report include case studies? If so, provide a summary of them.
  • Is this suitable for early-career professionals?
  • What are the risks or opportunities (if any) highlighted?

How do we decide what goes in the library?

Altiorem curates credible, freely accessible, evidence-based research and resources that supports sustainable finance learning and decision-making.

We include resources that meet five key principles:

1. Credible sources

Content must come from reputable organisations, such as governments, multilateral institutions, universities, NGOs, industry bodies, or established research providers, with the capacity to produce objective, analytical work.

2. Free and publicly accessible

All research in the library must be available without paywalls or proprietary access.

3. Relevant to sustainable finance

Resources must meaningfully contribute to understanding sustainable finance concepts or ESG issues and their implications for finance. This includes:

• Direct relevance: Research addressing financial risks, opportunities, regulation, corporate practices, or ESG integration.
• Foundational relevance: Issue-focused research (e.g. climate science, biodiversity, food systems, social conditions) that helps explain sustainability risks and material impacts relevant to finance.
• Systems thinking and alternative models: Work exploring Indigenous knowledge, non-Western governance approaches, and innovative economic or financial models that support a sustainable economy.

4. Useful for finance professionals

Research and resources must support better decision-making, whether through risk analysis, strategy, stewardship, policy insight, implementation guidance, frameworks, or foundational ESG education.

5. Evidence-based

Included resources contain data, analysis, methodology, case studies, or structured synthesis. We do include opinion-only content but that is in the form of articles only.

What we don’t include

We exclude:

• Promotional or marketing materials
• Corporate PR or annual reports
• High-level regulatory updates without analytical depth
• Unsupported advocacy or campaigning materials
• Unsourced explainers
• Proprietary or paid reports
• Low-rigour academic content
• Self-published work without credible backing
• Raw datasets without analysis (databases may be included separately)
• Tools or checklists without methodological justification

Our goal is to provide a trusted, practical, and intellectually rigorous resource that strengthens sustainable finance capability across the financial system.

How is the research categorised?

Altiorem’s research is categorised according to our comprehensive taxonomy of sustainable finance topics, which we developed through stakeholder engagement with industry and expert professionals, allowing our members to apply filters for precise searches.

• Sustainable Finance Practices (What SFP (s), e.g., governance and directors’ duties; active ownership, is the resource relevant to?)
• ESG issues (What ESG issue(s), e.g., biodiversity; human rights; corporate culture, is the resource relevant to?)
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (What SDG(s), e.g., No Poverty; Gender Equality, is the resource relevant to?)
• SASB sustainability sector (What SASB sector(s), e.g., Food & beverage; Infrastructure, is the resource relevant to?)
• Finance relevance (What financial group(s), e.g., banking and financing, is the resource relevant to?)
• Asset class (What asset class(es), e.g., real assets, is the resource relevant to?)
• Location (What locations(s) is the resource relevant to?)
• Tags (Tags are used for specific purposes. For example, we have a case studies tag that identifies all research that includes case studies within).

Ask Alma, Altiorem’s AI-powered Research Assistant

Alma answers only from Altiorem’s library, never the open web, and cites every resource it uses so you can check it. It is built in three parts, and each works the way it does for a reason: the whole-library chat gives you diversity, chatting with a single report gives you depth, and a research deep dive gives you both.

Whole library: diversity

Open Alma from the Ask Alma button. It searches Altiorem’s summary pages and categories and brings back up to eight sources per answer. Working from summaries is deliberate: it keeps each answer drawing on a range of organisations and perspectives, rather than letting the pages of one long report dominate the response.

Best for: “what does the research say about…”, and for finding the reports, tools and databases worth reading.

Chat with a report: depth

Every source Alma cites can be opened. Choose Chat with this report and Alma reads that report itself, page by page, and points you to page numbers you can view beside the chat. This is also how to check a source before relying on it.

Best for: figures, methods, case studies and detail from one document.

Research deep dive: both

For a bigger brief, with several parts, examples, evidence and structures, commission a research deep dive. A deep dive works across the full 125,000 indexed pages of the library and can draw on dozens of sources, so you get the breadth of the whole library and the depth of the reports themselves, in a fully referenced write-up. Your finished deep dives are kept in My Library.

How to get the best answers

• Ask a specific question, then follow up. Alma remembers the last three questions and answers in a conversation, so you can build on an answer with “which of those cover Australia?” or “what financing structures did they use?”.
• Keep questions under 2,000 characters (roughly 300 words). A character count appears as you get close. Longer is not better: Alma uses your question to search the library, and a long, multi-part question brings back sources that each match only part of it, so the answer gets thinner rather than richer. If your question is really a brief, use a deep dive.
• Be precise. Name the region, sector or timeframe you care about, and ask for examples or figures.
• Start a new chat to change subject. Report chats and whole-library chats are kept separately, and your conversations are saved in My Library.

Your allowance

• Free members: 5 Alma questions a month, plus 1 free research deep dive to try it.
• Gold members: 50 Alma questions and 3 research deep dives a month.
• Platinum members: 200 Alma questions and 8 research deep dives a month.

Monthly and annual plans count the same. Each question, including a follow-up, counts as one.

Want more? Select a plan to upgrade.