CSRHub Blog Research on ESG metrics and comments on sustainability best practice

CSRHub is pleased to announce that it is now integrating data from Arabesque S-Rayâ into its consensus ratings. Using quantitative data techniques and a rules-based approach, Arabesque S-Ray provides technology that is used by some of the world’s largest investors, corporations and consultancies to assess the sustainability performance of listed companies globally. S-Ray data will now directly contribute to CSRHub’s sustainability analysis of more than 7,000 companies, and will enhance the ratings for all 36,000 companies that CSRHub covers.

Arabesque S-Ray systematically combines over 250 ESG long-term metrics with news and NGO signals from over 30,000 sources to provide dynamic and responsive scores. Covering over 85% of global market cap and drawing from over four million ESG data points daily, S-Ray utilises an ever-expanding and diverse range of data to create quantitative metrics for the assessment of corporate performance.

The chart below compares the S-Ray ESG Score of 6,263 companies with CSRHub’s own ratings, captured on 1 December, 2019. The data shows a rating correlation of 58%, which is particularly striking given that CSRHub’s ratings were published two months after those of S-Ray, and highlights the effectiveness of S-Ray’s daily scoring approach.

Arabesque S-Ray joins other major ESG data and ratings providers who supply data to CSRHub, such as MSCI, Vigeo Eiris, ISS, and S&P Trucost. Each of these providers offers a unique perspective on the ESG performance of the companies they cover—perspectives that CSRHub combines with crowd, non-profit organization, and government datasets to create its consensus rating.

Todd Arthur Bridges, Global Head of Sustainable Investing and ESG Research at Arabesque S-Ray, said; “CSRHub is a truly unique company that knows the importance of systems-level thinking, and has brought the sustainable finance ecosystem together in a systematic way through their Consensus Ratings. Information is critical to well-functioning and efficient markets, and the leadership team of CSRHub has been able to break down the ESG paywalls across commercial organizations to help innovate and advance progress. The CSR Ratings and Rankings are well designed and allow for proper ESG consensus calibration – which can easily be understood by many users across the sustainable finance stakeholder community. Arabesque S-Ray is proud to be part of CSRHub and their mission.”

Bahar Gidwani, Cofounder and CTO at CSRHub said; “We were very pleased when our analysis showed that our methodology and results were closely aligned with those of S-Ray. S-Ray data appears to offer a current and forward-looking view of company ESG performance that matches well with CSRHub’s backward looking perspective.  By combining our work, investors and other researchers may be able to better understand and predict how perception of company ESG ratings will change.”

About CSRHub

CSRHub offers one of the world’s broadest and most consistent set of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings, covering 20,000 companies. Its Big Data algorithm combines millions of data points on ESG performance from hundreds of sources, including leading ESG analyst raters, to produce consensus scores on all aspects of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. CSRHub ratings can be used to drive corporate, investor and consumer decisions. For more information, visit www.CSRHub.com. CSRHub is a B Corporation.

About Arabesque S-Ray GmbH

S-Ray® is a leading analytics tool developed by Arabesque that assesses the sustainability performance of over 7,000 listed corporations using self-learning quantitative models and data scores. The technology systematically combines over 250 ESG metrics with news signals from over 30,000 sources across 170 countries. It is the first tool of its kind to rate companies on the normative principles of the United Nations Global Compact (GC Score). Additionally, S-Ray provides an industry-specific assessment of companies' performance on financially material sustainability criteria (ESG Score), together with an assessment of how companies report their emissions (Temperature™ Score). These scores are combined with a preferences filter that assesses a company's business involvements. S-Ray daily data products and services are used by some of the world's leading financial institutions, investors, corporations and consultants.

The Partnership Will Use CSRHub’s Data To Integrate ESG Into Supply Chain Analysis

New York - August 25, 2020 – CSRHub, a leader in consensus ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) ratings and information, announced today a partnership with Craft, the enterprise intelligence provider, to integrate data from CSRHub into Craft’s offerings. This integration will help supply chain managers build a 360-degree view of supplier ESG risk.

“The case for using corporate social responsibility measures as a leading indicator of company performance, and social and environmental impact has never been stronger. It is quickly becoming a key consideration in managing risk, driving customer satisfaction, and building ethical and resilient supply chains among our customers, said Ilya Levtov, founder and CEO of Craft. “We’re delighted to be working with CSRHub to incorporate its ESG ratings into Craft’s 360 degree view of every supplier that can be monitored on our platform.”

Recent climate, health, and social challenges have disrupted supply chains. Both companies see this partnership as a timely response to these challenges that could decrease supply chain risk and increase supply chain resilience.  

With ratings on 20,000 companies, CSRHub is a leader in consensus ESG ratings. “We expect to benefit from Craft’s strong customer relationships and its experience in supply chain management” said Cynthia Figge, CEO and Co-founder of CSRHub. “We are excited to bring high-value ESG data to Craft’s customers and enjoy being aligned with a company that shares our values.”

About CSRHub

CSRHub offers one of the world’s broadest and most consistent set of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings, covering 20,000 companies. Its Big Data algorithm combines millions of data points on ESG performance from hundreds of sources, including leading ESG analyst raters, to produce consensus scores on all aspects of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. CSRHub ratings can be used to drive corporate, investor and consumer decisions. For more information, visit www.CSRHub.com. CSRHub is a B Corporation.

About Craft

Craft is an enterprise intelligence company helping organizations make data-informed business decisions by delivering comprehensive, validated and always up-to-date commercial data, analytics, and actionable insights. Headquartered in San Francisco, Craft works globally with Fortune 500 companies in aerospace & defense, banking, pharmaceutical and retail. For more information, visit enterprise.craft.co or connect with us on LinkedIn.

CSRHub Media Contact:
Ruth Edwards
ruth@csrhub.com 

Craft Media Contact:
Zuzanna Wilson
zuzanna@craft.co
+ 415-425-8926

Goods Unite Us has spent thousands of hours vetting companies' political expenditures in federal elections. They will tell you about the donations made by the organization and its senior employees along with each company's exclusive Campaign Finance Reform Score. CSRHub measures the environmental, social and governance performance of thousands of companies by aggregating 700 sources to derive consensus ESG ratings.

Goods Unite Us and CSRHub have combined datasets to see if any correlations showed up in terms of political affiliation and ESG scores. And some did. 

Our new joint report, which to our knowledge is the first of its kind, is available here. In short: 

This past year of social and environment pressures (Covid-19, racism inequity, climate change, global risks) has created a new wave of demand for ESG data and insight. A growing number of corporates, professional firms and financial asset owners and managers are interested in ESG.

For example, more than 2,800 investors, representing 90% of world financial assets have now committed to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI). In response, companies are clarifying and harmonizing their reporting methodologies. More companies are reporting sustainability information. Around 50,000 entities have shared information about their sustainability performance either directly (about 12,000 have incorporated sustainability data in their public filings) or through participating in sustainability-related organizations or reporting systems.

ESG data providers are participating in this new wave of investor interest by offering:

• Broader coverage of entity types (i.e., public, private, not-for-profit) and coverage of more types of investments (e.g., equities, debt, REITs)
• Comparable, stable scores with enough history that an ESG factor can be used in a quantitative model or automated screening process
• Methods for integrating ESG with other financial and market return data sets
  
  

In previous articles we have referred to this new wave as “third-era” investors are driven to integrate ESG data by three themes:

• Marketing. In order to attract and retain assets, investors highlight their ESG methodology and follow it, even if it may result sometimes in underperformance.
• Risk avoidance. Asset managers who prioritize safety and downside reduction may see ESG data as an additional tool for identifying and avoiding risk.
• Materiality. Quantitative analysts have been using “alternative” data sets for years. ESG data may provide a new opportunity for algorithm-driven alpha generation.

ESG data is being integrated into investment processes through direct purchase of individual data sets. They are also being integrated into various types of data curation and distribution systems. ESG data used to be a subcategory of “alternative data.” It has now become its own category and the number of providers and variety of data sets available has grown. 

The new wave or “third-era” investment strategies will rely on data sets that have these characteristics:

• Broad, deep coverage. To be useful in an investment process, a data set should cover not only the equities an investor already holds, but also most if not all equities in similar entities. In some industries, there are large privately held competitors. ESG-oriented analysts should like data sets that also cover private companies.
• Streamlined factors, complete coverage of the factors, and a long stable history. Some ESG data sets offer two hundred, one thousand or even several thousand indicators. This amount of detail can overwhelm investors who are relatively new to ESG issues. It is also difficult to fill in all of “slots” in a data set. Many major ESG sources cannot complete 70% or more of their bottom level of indicators. Finally, most financial analysts are used to being able to study market patterns over long time horizons. No ESG data set goes back further than the 1990s—so analysts still cannot see how ESG factors relate to stock performance through a wide range of market conditions. Still, it is helpful if an ESG source has at least ten years of history and if it has made few or no changes to its methodology during this time.
• Works well when combined with other data sets. Many ESG data users purchase more than one type of data. They extract value from combining these data sets to examine different aspects of a company’s sustainability performance. It is important to pick data sets that have enough identifying information (e.g., ticker codes, ISINs, name variations) that they can be combined. It helps too, if it is easy to pull data from a data provider’s site or application programming interface (API).
  
  

These investors will demand ESG data sets that give them marketing differentiation, ways to reduce risk, and opportunities to generate alpha. They are likely to use several data sets and combine them in a proprietary way, as they seek to make their understanding of ESG data part of their competitive advantage in the investment marketplace.

CSRHub, a leading provider of ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) consensus ratings, is pleased to announce it has partnered with Intrinio, a financial data marketplace that provides fintech data and applications for developers and investors. ESG data is becoming an important component of investment decision processes. Intrinio has partnered with CSRHub to help combine signals about corporate ESG / sustainability performance with the many other data sets it has curated for its system.

Both CSRHub and Intrinio are committed to making financial and ESG data affordable and easy to access so investors and analysts can save money and time building meaningful outcomes.

Investors and researchers increasingly want to integrate their financial data with ESG data for more efficient and impactful analysis. CSRHub data can be used to benchmark ESG performance, increase corporate market value, uncover portfolio opportunities and risks, back-test theories about ESG behavior, and integrate ESG trends into other Business Intelligence data sets.

Using a patented algorithm that aggregates and harmonizes disparate data from 690+ ESG sources, CSRHub generates a consensus score for the ESG performance of 19,000 companies from 134 industries in 143 countries. With many disparate sources of ESG information available, centralizing and interpreting ESG metrics has become burdensome for many firms. CSRHub streamlines ESG data and makes it useful and powerful.

“Partnering with Intrinio to deliver both their analytics and CSRHub’s ESG data to clients will enable investors to leverage powerful insights and enhance their decision-making processes,” said Cynthia Figge, CEO of CSRHub.

“Many of our customers see us as their dedicated data partner and one-stop shop for a variety of financial data feeds. Joining forces with CSRHub to offer their innovative data is a crucial step for us when it comes to serving our clients as they develop cutting-edge apps, algorithms, platforms, and websites,” said Rachel Carpenter, CEO of Intrinio.

For more information, see https://intrinio.com/products/csrhub-esg-ratings.

About CSRHub

CSRHub offers one of the world’s broadest and most consistent set of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings, covering 19,000 companies. Its Big Data algorithm combines millions of data points on ESG performance from hundreds of sources, including leading ESG analyst raters, to produce consensus scores on all aspects of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. CSRHub ratings can be used to drive corporate, investor and consumer decisions. For more information, visit www.CSRHub.com. CSRHub is a B Corporation.

About Intrinio

Intrinio is a financial data partner powering innovation by providing high-quality data, cutting-edge tools, and world-class support to quant funds, fintech companies, and academic institutions. Intrinio’s powerful application programming interface (API) is designed for the needs of engineers and developers and supported by more than 200 financial data feeds that can be easily integrated into applications, websites, algorithms, and other financial tools. Learn more at https://intrinio.com.