MSCI Launches Sustainability Comparison Tool
MSCI Inc.
MSCI has launched MSCI Corporate Sustainability Insights, a tool aimed at helping corporate sustainability executives understand the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and climate challenges and opportunities facing their companies.
MSCI Corporate Sustainability Insights allows executives to compare their company's ESG and climate data with peers and identify potential disclosure gaps through visual aids such as charts, graphs, and maps. This information is available for companies that are tracked by MSCI ESG Research.
Features of MSCI Corporate Sustainability Insights, managed by MSCI ESG Research LLC, are designed to give companies:
Streamlined insights to support strategic planning and drive investor engagement through new visualisations of MSCI ESG Research risk and performance data, including a company’s ESG Ratings, ESG Controversies, and Sustainable Development Goals Net Alignment profiles;
Views into their risk exposure and alignment with global temperature goals through MSCI ESG Research’s Climate Value-at-Risk and Implied Temperature Rise solutions;
Help in identifying their potential disclosure gaps in carbon-related commitments through the MSCI Target Explorer tool; and
Based on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations, perspectives on climate-related risks and opportunities are compared with those of industry peers.
MSCI ESG Research has been looking at the ESG performance of companies for more than 40 years, using both publicly available data and direct contact with companies. Due to the growing importance of ESG for investors and companies and increased regulatory reporting requirements, companies have been providing more data to MSCI ESG Research. In 2022, 43% (3,989 companies) of those in the MSCI ACWI Investible Market Index had direct interaction with MSCI ESG Research.
Due to the increasing regulatory requirements for TCFD-aligned rules, more companies have been making net-zero pledges. As of March 2022, 1,330 out of 2,900 companies in the MSCI ACWI Index had set emission-reduction targets. Institutional investors are moving toward ESG and climate investing goals, so companies are also sharing more information about the climate. The number of climate change data points submitted by companies to MSCI ESG Research rose from 9,914 to 14,648 between 2021 and 2022.
Beth Byington, Global Head of Corporate ESG and Climate Solutions at MSCI, said: “The ESG and climate needs of companies have evolved dramatically as new reporting requirements from regulators and institutional investors have emerged in recent years. It is now more important than ever for listed companies to speak a common language with these audiences about financial opportunities and risks associated with subjects like climate change. MSCI Corporate Sustainability Insights was created to help corporate leaders, such as chief sustainability officers, gain further transparency into their ESG and climate profile. We hope these deeper insights will allow them to take quick, decisive action to meet their unique sustainability goals.”
Source: MSCI
