This background paper provides inputs to the G20 Green Finance Study Group (GFSG) that considers options to improve the availability, accessibility and relevance of publicly available environmental data (PAED) for the financial sector. In this paper, we define PAED as environmental data that are reported by non-corporate entities, such as government agencies, international organizations (IOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and science institutes, and that are useful for financial analysis. The focus of this study on public data is complementary to the subject matter considered by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The TCFD has already devoted significant resources to studying how to improve corporate-level financial disclosure of climate-related information.