Editor’s pick
Could do Better: Year-End ESG Data Reports Offer Mixed Picture
The growing importance of ESG to the financial system was reflected this year in a greater push among investors and asset managers to address challenges in the data and reporting environment. Several end-of-year snapshots of the ESG sector paint a picture of greater engagement by the financial community in the sources and quality of the...
Top Blogs
Asset and Wealth Managers Demand Different ESG Data, SIX Survey Finds
Asset managers and wealth managers have divergent data needs for ESG investing, a new survey suggests. While asset managers want access to better and more varied granular data, their wealth-focused counterparts prefer packaged ratings, the survey by Swiss financial services company SIX found. At the same time, both expressed frustration at the shortage of information...
CSRD Approval Seen as Major Step in Closing ESG Data Holes
The European Union’s approval of its Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) this week has given the greenlight to a regulation that’s expected to provide financial institutions with more comprehensive ESG data and go some way to eradicating greenwashing. The long-awaited rules will bring non-financial companies into the EU’s sustainability reporting regime, forcing them to submit...
Clamour for ESG Data Makes Good Management Crucial
ESG data is now core to banks’ and financial institutions’ operations, their compliance and risk processes and the products they offer investors. For that reason, it’s crucial that this data be managed properly and treated in the same way as other datasets. Without good data management, banks can be left commercially and legally exposed, vulnerable...
Latest briefs
HK Companies Urged to Prepare for TCFD, ISSB Reporting Rules
Listed companies in Hong Kong should start planning and installing the technology and data provisions to meet more stringent disclosure rules, the city’s Stock Exchange has said. The HKSE is in the process of formulating reporting rules in line with the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) frameworks.
Fitch ESG Unit Expand Ratings on Covered and Structured Bonds
Sustainable Fitch has begun providing ESG ratings for labelled structured and covered bonds with an issuance value of US$100 billion. The metrics are the latest additions to Fitch Sustainable’s ESG Ratings, Data and Analysis unit, which has been offering data on $500bn of labelled and KPI-linked debt.
FCA Urges Refocus of Diversity Data, Reveals ESG Ratings Code Plan
The UK’s financial overseer has urged firms to review their use of data to improve their diversity and inclusion performance. Sheldon Mills, the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) executive director for consumers and competition said firms are focusing too closely on gender and diversity, rather than socio-economic data. The call follows the FCA’s announcement that it…
Companies Linked to Climate Risk Surges in Two Years, Says RepRisk
The percentage of companies whose business is at risk of climate impacts has risen 70 per cent in two years, according to technology provider RepRisk, which uses a variety of geolocated datasets to establish ESG hotspots around the world. Of those, 80 per cent were private companies. The number of companies at risk is now…
ICE Service Enables Disclosure According to TCFD Framework
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has unveiled a tool that helps its financial institution clients disclose their sustainability performance in line with Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The new service pulls in ICE’s climate transition data and analytics, corporate-entity and green bond data.
EFRAG Gives Nod to EU Corporate Sustainable Reporting Standards
ESG reporting standards for European companies have been approved. The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) gave its backing to the final version of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which will prescribe how companies must disclose their ESG performance.
Investors Fear Poor Reporting Undermines Investment, Trust in ESG
Investors are concerned that corporations’ ESG disclosures aren’t detailed enough. A survey by EY found that about three-quarters of investors didn’t believe the companies in which they invested gave sufficient data-driven insights on which to make decisions. This is undermining the smooth running of capital markets and eroding trust in ESG, the survey stated.
European Parliament Adopts CSRD
The European Union’s parliament has endorsed the creation of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the regulation that’s intended to oblige larger non-financial companies to disclose their ESG performance. The parliament overwhelmingly approved the formation of the framework, which is to be implemented by the end of next year.
Capital.com to Take Refinitiv ESG Data and Sentiment Analyses
Refinitiv will supply ESG data top clients of European investment trading platform Capital.com. The data provider, part of the London Stock Exchange Group, will provide real-time data as well as AI-generated sentiment analysis.
CDP Adopts ISSB-Created Reporting Template
CDP will integrate into its disclosures platform a newly created template that’s likely to form the basis of a global reporting standard for climate-related performance. CDP will use the IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures that’s being drawn up by the International Sustainable Standards Board. The board was created at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, last year to…
ESG Disclosure Blueprint for Private, Alternative Investors Unveiled
A template for companies to submit their ESG disclosures to private and alternative investors has been launched. The ESG Integrated Disclosure Project (ESG IDP) template aims to promote “greater harmonisation and consistency of disclosure of key ESG indicators by borrowers in private credit and syndicated loan transactions”.
Start-up Util Raises £5m for its Environmental Impact Data Service
Util has closed a £5 million funding round that saw the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange buy stakes in the London-based sustainability data provider. Util counts Danske Bank Asset Management and Degroof Petercam Asset Management among the customers to whom it supplies environmental impact data on 50,000 companies.
Rimes Offers Clients DEI Data from Denominator
Diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) metrics specialist Denominator is to provide data and scores to financial institution clients of ESG data management company Rimes Technologies. Rimes, which won two gongs in this year’s A-Team Innovation Awards, described the new partnership as a “great addition to our data universe”. Denominator’s metrics are based on more than…
FI Feedback Sought in Creation of GFANZ Corporate Climate Data Hub
Financial institutions and auditing companies have been invited to offer their expertise and feedback on the creation of a global corporate climate performance database backed by the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ). The One Planet Data Hub would be handed over to the United Nations once it is complete, and a prototype service…
Bloomberg Expands Sustainable Fixed Income Index Offering
Bloomberg has added new sustainable bond indices to its suite of ESG-focused products. The Bloomberg Global Aggregate Green, Social, Sustainability Bond Indices will be built on the financial data giant’s Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index, the Bloomberg Sustainable Finance Group’s green, social and sustainability bond indicators, and metrics aligned to the International Capital Market Association Green…
Latest people
ACA Group Names ESG Veteran as European MD
The ACA Group has named former United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing (PRI) European director Marie Luchet as its new Managing Director of ESG. Luchet will lead the governance, risk and compliance adviser’s European operations. In her more-than 20 years working in ESG, Luchet also served as Head of Responsible Investment with ECOFI Investissements and…
More Names Added to Bring ISSB Team to 10
Four more members have been added to the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the IFRS Foundation’s recently created body that’s been tasked with hammering out an international framework for ESG reporting. They are Richard Barker, of the University of Oxford Saïd Business School’s sustainable business initiatives; Verity Chegar of California State Teachers’ Retirement System; Bing…
Moody’s Appoints Former ISS Director to ESG Role
Moody’s ESG Solutions clients can now examine how companies’ emissions targets align with global net-zero benchmarks via a new Temperature Alignment Data product. The launch came as the company published a report that showed fewer than half of 4,400 companies surveyed had set emissions targets and only 17 per cent mentioned “net-zero”. Meanwhile, Moody’s has…
PRI Names Former Board Member Atkin as Next CEO
The Principles for Responsible Investing (PRI), the United Nations’ body that’s drawing up guidelines for sustainable finance, has appointed former AMP Capital executive David Atkin as its new Chief Executive. Atkin will take over the reins from Fiona Reynolds on December 10. In a career that has spanned major Australian asset managers Cbus, ESS Super…
GoldenSource Hires ex-ION Director to Lead OnDemand Managed Service Solution
GoldenSource has appointed Xavier Gerardin, formerly lead of hosted services at ION, as global head of its OnDemand solution, a cloud-based managed service that provides hosting, technical and business assistance services for the company’s EDM clients. With 20 years’ experience in capital markets, including managing over 100 financial software programmes, Gerardin’s responsibility at GoldenSource is…
LSEG Names David Harris to Lead Sustainable Finance Product Team
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has named David Harris to lead its sustainable finance product team, part of the data and analytics division. Harris will report to Stuart Brown, group head of enterprise data solutions, and will build on ongoing investment in ESG and sustainable investment indexes, data and analytics products. Harris will also drive…
Kay Swinburne Named as Chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group
Dr Kay Swinburne, vice chair of financial services at KPMG UK and former vice chair of the European Parliament’s Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee, has been named chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG). The role was previously held by former city minister Mark Hoban. The IRSG is focused on promoting regulation that encourages…
Former Teradata CEO Oliver Ratzesberger, Appointed Chair of OpenCorporates
OpenCorporates, provider of a large open database of companies worldwide, has named former Teradata CEO Oliver Ratzesberger as the first chair of its board. OpenCorporates has grown rapidly in the past nine years with its White Box company data attracting millions of visitors to its website every month. Users include financial institutions, government agencies and…
Asset Control Targets Buy Side with Nielen Hire
Asset Control’s appointment of industry veteran Stef Nielen is part of a renewed focus on the buy side, following a number of contract wins in that segment. Nielen, who joins director, strategic development, hails from Axioma, where he was sales director, and has held sales-oriented roles with MSCI and RiskMetrics, among other buy-side oriented suppliers….
Neudata Opens Shanghai Office, Hires China-Focused Data Strategist
After seeing an increase in demand for data scouting services in Asia, London-based independent data sourcing and research service Neudata announced today that it has opened an office in Shanghai and hired Helena Yu to manage its client data requests in the region. The Neudata Scout platform captures over 3,500 datasets across sentiment, social media,…
Featured
FEATURED WEBINAR
Recorded Webinar: The keys to ESG data management success
The transition to a more environmentally and socially sustainable world has created an urgent and strategic priority for the banking and capital markets sector. Driven by stakeholder pressures from investors, regulators and customers to prioritise ESG considerations in their corporate agenda, ESG has accelerated digital transformation and brought a renewed focus on firms to improve…
FEATURED EVENT
ESG Data & Tech Summit London
The ESG Data & Tech Summit will explore challenges around assembling and evaluating ESG data for reporting and the impact of regulatory measures and industry collaboration on transparency and standardisation efforts. Expert speakers will address how the evolving market infrastructure is developing and the role of new technologies and alternative data in improving insight and filling data gaps.
FEATURED GUIDE
ESG Data Handbook 2022
The ESG landscape is changing faster than anyone could have imagined even five years ago. With tens of trillions of dollars expected to have been committed to sustainable assets by the end of the decade, it’s never been more important for financial institutions of all sizes to stay abreast of changes in the ESG data…
Top White Papers
Future-Proof Your ESG Data Strategy Across the Enterprise
ESG data is now as important to financial institutions as traditional price and reference data. Ensuring that data is accurate and consistent is critical so that can deploy it in their portfolio and risk management strategies as well as regulatory reporting systems. But ESG data is unlike that they would be used to. It’s often...
Meeting the Data Challenges of Europe’s ESG Regulatory Landscape
The European Union’s ESG reporting regulations continue to evolve and represent the biggest recognition yet by any international authority of the role that financial institutions will play in the climate transition. The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), the EU Taxonomy, the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSDR) are intended to...
Practical Data Strategies for meeting ESG Obligations in Financial Services
The ESG investing landscape is poised to become more defined, as competing definitions, standards and regulatory initiatives start to converge. The impact of ESG will be felt far and wide across the financial services community, which will face practical challenges in developing and implementing an ESG strategy that is both effective and avoids box-ticking –...
Events and webinars
Recorded Webinar: Putting data management processes in place for MiFID II
The January 2018 compliance deadline for Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) is approaching fast, so how ready are financial institutions to meet the directive’s requirements, what data management processes should they be prioritising to ensure compliance, and what outstanding challenges do they face? Also, what do regulators expect firms to have in...
Recorded Webinar: Managing data, research and trading challenges in the countdown to MiFID II
MiFID II is a far-reaching regulatory directive, years in the works, but now just a few short months from taking effect on January 3. The European Union regulation will have global impact, in areas including unbundling payments for asset management research, allowing systematic internalizers latitude to handle more types of instruments, data management methods and...
Recorded Webinar: Artificial Intelligence in the EDM Era
The scope and scale of structured and unstructured data that financial firms must manage continues to grow exponentially, calling for innovative approaches that can deliver automated, accurate and timely decision making. Artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing are prime contenders to ease the enterprise data management burden, but what types of solutions are available, how...
Awards
A-Team Innovation Awards
We are delighted to announce the call for entry/nomination phase in the much anticipated A-Team Innovation Awards 2023 is now open! These awards celebrate successful projects within financial institutions (both with vendor support and without) across the financial enterprise.
