We Have Corporate Comparisons Galore – The Institutional Investor Has Access to Volumes of ESG Data Sets & Information – Where Can Others Find Scores, Rankings and Ratings of Public Companies?

These days the comparisons of companies in sectors and industries and among investment peers (those companies chasing similar sources of capital) are continuing to gain momentum.  There are numerous third party players busily analyzing, measuring and charting company ESG performance and producing scores, rankings, ratings and various kinds of comparisons (company-to-company, company to industry etc) for their investor-clients (asset owners and managers).

Companies typically get to see how they are doing when they inspect their ESG service provider profiles…but those data and information sets are not always publicly available.

So how should the person without access to the major ESG service providers’ confidential output understand where the public company sits in the views of the analysts (at least the highlights, such as scores assigned)?  Slowly but steadily some of the volumes of information provided to investor clients by the major ESG ratings agencies are making their way into public view.  For example, you can see a public company’s Sustainalytics highlights on Yahoo Finance. For Apple Inc. / NASDAQ: AAPL “ESG Total Score” information, click here.

Our colleagues at CSR Hub® share a number of Ratings & Rankings and other CSR and ESG highlights on their web site and their “ESG Hub” information (which is available on the Bloomberg Terminal®)  CSR Hub is at: https://www.csrhub.com/

Now a neat presentation comes our way from Visual Capital, authored by Jenna Ross.  This is a mapping of “The Countries with the Most Sustainable Corporate Giants”.  Remember BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s letter to corporate CEOs urging them to serve a social purpose to deliver not only financial performance but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society?  Following that theme, Corporate Knights “2019 Global 100 Report” data and ranking of the “most sustainable corporations in the world” is presented in visualization format.

Corporate Knights scores companies on a mix of metrics after screening for those with at least US$1 billion in revenues and sufficient sustainability reporting:  resource management; employee (or human capital) management; financial management; “clean” revenue; supplier performance.  The United States comes out at the top of the charting with 22 of the 100 companies on the list, followed by France (11), Japan (8), Finland and United Kingdom 7), and Canada (6).  No company in China or India made the list. Of the “Top 10-star players” only one is from the USA – the REIT Prologis Inc.  Denmark has two companies; the rest are one-off listings from other countries.

Author Jenna Ross sums up: “It’s clear that sustainability is a strong differentiator in the business community.  The world’s largest – and smartest – companies are leading the charge towards a greener, more equitable future.”  We think you’ll find the charting of the Global 100 fascinating and very useful – and there are many other clever and useful visual presentations on the web site.  Check out our Top Story for this week.

This is just the introduction of G&A's Sustainability Highlights newsletter this week. Click here to view full issue.