Refinitiv, a provider of financial markets data and infrastructure that has served more than 40,000 institutions in over 190 countries, announced on Tuesday it has launched Lipper Fund ESG Scores to facilitate industry transition to sustainable investing.
Refinitiv reported that the Lipper Fund ESG Scores brings together the Lipper fund universe of 330,000 fund share classes and its deep holdings content, ESG coverage on 9,000+ companies representing over 80% of global market capitalization, and Refinitiv’s proprietary scoring methodology which factors in issues such as materiality and transparency stimulation, to create fund scores on over 19,000 unique portfolios representing $15.7 trillion in total net assets across equity, bonds and mixed funds.
“Refinitiv Lipper Fund ESG Scores are designed to transparently and objectively measure ESG performance, commitment and effectiveness across 10 main themes (emissions, environmental product innovation, diversity and inclusion, human rights, shareholders, etc.) based on publicly-reported data on constituents within the fund across the three pillars Environmental, Social and Governance.”
While sharing details about the ESG Scores, David Craig, CEO of Refinitiv, stated:
“It has become imperative for financial markets to address so investors can direct funds to transitionary projects and away from high carbon and carbon-equivalent industries, and to meet an increasing number of regulatory mandates. Sustainable finance isn’t just a political or social choice — it’s a smart business decision. Refinitiv is proud to play its part in encouraging this transition by providing trusted data and analytics to investors, traders and advisors so they can evaluate ESG performance and allocate capital.”
Craig further explained that the ESG Scores are a”uniquely effective” way to assess performance across industries. The Lipper ESG Fund Scores incorporate two overall ESG scores in the model:
- ESG score: Measures a company’s or fund’s ESG performance based on verifiable reported data in the public domain.
- ESG combined score: Overlays the ESG score with ESG controversies (impact of negative events) to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the company’s sustainability impact and conduct in near real-time.