ESG Archive

State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) is adding to the growing social and investment pressure on corporations to take issues of racial diversity, equity and inclusion more seriously. In a letter to board chairs released last week, SSGA global chief investment officer Richard Lacaille explains that starting in 2021 the asset manager – which has roughly $3 trillion in assets under management – will ask portfolio companies to explain their risks, goals and strategy r...

Several groups have come together to urge US companies to increase diversity on their boards and present a framework for how such change can be achieved. The Diverse Corporate Directors Coalition (DCDC) cites a 2018 McKinsey report as stating that companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity were 43 percent more likely to see above-average profitability. But it also points to a 2018 review of Fortune 500 companies as finding that from 2010 to 2018 the represen...

This article first appeared on MSCI.com. We examined three approaches to creating a combined ESG score: equal weighting, optimization using historical data and industry-specific weights, represented by MSCI ESG Ratings In the short term, we found that both equal-weighted and optimized approaches performed better because they had highe...

This article first appeared on MSCI.com Very different ESG issues can be material for different industries. Our research suggests that risks can be divided into two main types: ‘event‘ risks and ‘erosion‘ risks to companies’ long-term competitiveness Environmental key issues were purely erosion-driven (they unfolded over time...