RobecoSAM, the investment specialist focused exclusively on Sustainability Investing (SI), and Bloomberg, the leading data provider for business and financial information, news and analytics, published the percentile rankings of almost 2000 companies on the Bloomberg Professional service today. These percentile rankings come from RobecoSAM’s 2016 Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA), the research backbone for the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. The data will be available across a number of the Bloomberg Professional service’s investment tools, supporting company, industry and portfolio analysis, including ESG — the new company ESG analysis page.
RobecoSAM becomes the first company to offer a complete ESG company ranking dataset to mainstream investors through the Bloomberg Professional service. This move supports RobecoSAM’s mission to drive sustainable thinking in financial markets and to increase non-financial disclosure amongst corporates. The information provides investors with an overview of the ESG performance of a company compared to its industry peers while safeguarding the confidentiality of information between RobecoSAM and the assessed companies.
RobecoSAM will also publish a selection of blank versions of some industry-specific questionnaires in order to provide Bloomberg Professional service users a deeper understanding of the methodology used to collect the information. Additional research, such as methodology research and guidance, will also be published on a separate page (RSAM ) to ensure that Bloomberg Professional service customers understand the context in which the percentile ranks are being calculated.
Daniel Wild, PhD, Head of SI Research& Development, Member of the Executive Committee, RobecoSAM: “This is a turning point in the sustainable investment industry and a unique opportunity to share current information from one of the world’s longest running and most comprehensive databases of corporate sustainability information with the wider investor community. It will give investors and companies a basis for engagement and discussion, and will drive improvements in corporate sustainability disclosure and strategy. Companies have one more good reason to participate in our CSA and showcase their ESG performance.” Barbara Pomfret, ESG Product Manager, Bloomberg: “By integrating the percentile rankings of RobecoSAM’s 2016 Corporate Sustainability Assessment, Bloomberg is further increasing the availability of ESG-related (environmental, social and governance) data for its Bloomberg Professional users. RobecoSAM’s ranking on the Bloomberg Terminal will help financial professionals consider relevant ESG data into their decision-making. This provides users with greater transparency around a company’s ESG performance.”
Companies Support the Transparency
A majority of assessed companies support the decision to publish the sustainability results, according to a RobecoSAM survey conducted last fall. By sharing selected results, RobecoSAM improves transparency in the Page 2 of 3 ESG scoring industry and enables the comparison of its results with other ESG research and among industry peers. The collaboration with Bloomberg provides companies a unique platform to showcase their sustainability performance to the global investment community and demonstrate that they belong to a leading group of companies within their industry, if they perform well.
RobecoSAM’s approach to measuring corporate sustainability
The CSA focuses on long-term value creation, with more than 100 questions on a company’s economic, environmental, social and corporate governance practices in 60 industry-specific questionnaires. Over half of all questions are industry-specific as RobecoSAM is convinced that industry-specific sustainability risks and opportunities play a key role in a firm’s long-term success. The other half includes questions on general sustainability issues such as corporate governance, environmental policy and human capital development. Participating in the RobecoSAM CSA, the most widely recognized sustainability assessment according to the “Rate the Raters” study, is the first step for companies to be included in iconic indices like the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) or to be considered for inclusion into new products for investors, such as the recently launched S&P 500 ESG, S&P Europe 350 ESG, S&P Topix 150 ESG, S&P Global 1200 ESG and S&P Long-Term Value Creation Index.
Publicly available information on how we assess and rate companies can be found here: http://www.robecosam.com/csa
