Corporate Responsibility: Better Investments for a Better World Better Investments for a Better World At MSCI, we seek to bring clarity to dynamic and increasingly complex financial markets. Relentless innovation is in our DNA. Seeing the impact of those innovations on global economies drives us to continue building forward. We are powered by the belief that ROI also means return on community, sustainability and the future that we all share. Healthy economies stimulate job creation, encourage infrastructure development and generate the returns necessary to improve living standards for everyone, everywhere. Investing today requires informed decisions that contribute to a better world. MSCI. Powering better investment decisions. 0 seconds of 0 seconds The MSCI Story We strive to bring greater transparency to financial markets, enabling the investment community to make better decisions for a better world. Download Transcript We create innovative products and services that power better investment decisions. We provide investors with critical performance measurement and risk management data and analytics. Through our environmental, social and governance (ESG) research and applications, we deliver insights, analytics and tools to support investment processes that incorporate sustainability considerations. MSCI has been at the forefront of providing data, research and other tools to help enable ESG integration across the whole investment process and is committed to further advance solutions to facilitate and accelerate sustainable investing. Our research, ratings, indexes, models and portfolio analytics empower the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors in their drive to integrate ESG considerations into their investment processes. MSCI also promotes ESG transparency across the investment value chain by making publicly available our ESG ratings of the most commonly owned companies worldwide, as well as our methodologies for determining ESG company ratings and constructing ESG indexes. MSCI urges all investors globally to more readily integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations throughout their investment processes if they are to mitigate the risks and identify the opportunities of a rapidly changing world and contribute to an effective and balanced transition towards a sustainable economy. MSCI has published “The MSCI Principles of Sustainable Investing,” a framework designed to illustrate specific, actionable steps that investors can and should undertake to improve practices for ESG integration across the investment value chain. Through our environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) research and applications we deliver in-depth research, ratings and analysis of the environmental, social and governance-related business practices of over 7,500 companies (13,500 issuers including subsidiaries) worldwide. Our research provides critical insights that can help institutional investors identify risks and opportunities that can impact the performance of their investments. As of September 30, 2019, MSCI ESG Research was used by over 1,300 investors worldwide. By helping our clients pursue sustainable and socially responsible investing strategies, our role is important in facilitating investment decisions that can ultimately lead to a better world. MSCI ESG Research has worked with institutional investors for more than 20 years to enable them to incorporate climate change considerations in their investment process by providing an extensive climate risk assessment and reporting offering, providing global investors with solutions to help them better understand the impact of climate change on their investment portfolios. We continue to expand our product range, serving global investors with climate change solutions. MSCI’s recent acquisition of Carbon Delta1, which is a global leader in climate change scenario analysis, strengthens our suite of climate risk capabilities with technology that supports climate scenario analysis and forward-looking assessment of transition and physical risks, as well as extensive company-level analysis of publicly traded companies globally. More information on our climate change solutions. Our team of experts are focused on in-depth research, ratings and analysis of the environmental, social and governance-related business practices of thousands of global companies. Products, services and insights that help investors adopt an ESG investing strategy include: MSCI ESG Research provides MSCI ESG Ratings for nearly 14,000 companies. In November 2019, MSCI ESG Research made the ESG Ratings of over 2,800 companies publicly available, allowing investors to identify ESG leaders and laggards according to their exposure to ESG risks and how well they manage them relative to peers. This new feature is part of our mission to help investors, companies and other industry stakeholders identify the most financially relevant ESG risks and opportunities by driving greater transparency and offering investors access to dynamic, AI-enabled ESG data and insights. MSCI ESG Research covers over 32,000 mutual funds and ETFs. MSCI ESG Fund Ratings measures the ESG characteristics of portfolio holdings and rank of screen funds based on diverse factors including sustainable impact, values alignment and ESG risks. In support of the trend towards greater investment transparency, by April 30, 2020, MSCI will also make public the ESG characteristics of all MSCI Equity Indexes and of the most commonly owned mutual funds. To help investors identify the extent of companies' involvement in activities with positive social and environmental impacts, MSCI ESG Sustainable Impact Metrics allows investors to identify companies with products or services that address at least one of the major social and environmental challenges as defined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In December 2018, MSCI and the OECD announced a collaboration to help institutional investors achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), by producing a joint research paper “Institutional Investing for the SDGs”. The aim of the paper is to facilitate a discussion among market participants and stakeholders about the role of institutional investors in implementing UN SDGs into their strategies. To broaden access to our ESG research, we partnered with wealth managers and ETF providers to distribute our MSCI ESG Research to retail investors, such as providing ESG fund scores on self-directed investing platforms offering ESG-screened funds and licensing our indexes as the basis of ETFs that integrate ESG considerations. To support investor ESG engagement, MSCI ESG Research published a series of research papers called “Foundations of ESG Investing” and provides training programs, speaks at events and conferences, and through the MSCI Client Advisory Panel provides a global forum to exchange ideas, innovate, share best practices and help produce standards that might benefit the industry; To enable investors to incorporate ESG beliefs throughout the entire investment process (asset allocation, portfolio construction, risk management, performance attribution), we integrated MSCI ESG ratings, data and indexes2 into most of our analytics portfolio and risk management systems. For additional information, please see our ESG investing page. To help institutional investors benchmark ESG investment performance, issue index-based investment products, as well as measure and report on ESG mandates, we constantly innovate our ESG index products. To support real estate owners, managers and brokers we publish a number of Green Property Indexes based on assets which have a green building certificate. We have published a research paper on the effects of climate change on real estate assets. In September of 2019, MSCI sponsored PRI in Person in Paris, which had climate change as its top theme. PRI is the leading global conference on responsible investment which attracted over 1,800 attendees from around the world. At MSCI’s sponsorship booth, we featured a tree-planting initiative in partnership with One Tree Planted, a non-profit organization focused on planting trees around the world. For each of the 80 business cards we received, a tree was planted. MSCI also participated in Climate Week NYC, from September 23 to 29 2019, which kicked off this year with the UN 2019 Climate Summit. Climate Week has come to represent an annual milestone for climate commitments among investors, businesses policymakers and other stakeholders. Recent Product Launches MSCI UN SDGs Alignment Tool To help investors assess alignment to UN Sustainable Development Goals, we recently launched the MSCI SDG Alignment Tool. Learn More Climate Change Index Offers a range of indexes for investors who seek to incorporate climate risks and opportunities into their investment process Explore More ESG Funds Ratings ESG Fund Ratings aim to measure the resilience of mutual funds and ETFs to long term risks and opportunities arising from environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues Explore ESG Ratings ESG Ratings Badges Issued for corporates (August 2019) – Transparency & Corp. engagement Institutional investors are increasingly integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into their investment decision making processes Access Ratings Badges ESG Influence Voted #1 in 13 categories of the 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018/19 IRRI Surveys including Best Firm for Socially Responsible Investment Research, Corporate Governance Research and Indices and Benchmarks. Awarded the Gold Standard Data Provider from the Deep Data Delivery Standards in 2016 Deep Data Delivery Standard In 2018, Barron’s named Linda-Eling Lee, our Global Head of ESG Research, one of the 20 most influential people in ESG investing. In 2018, Veronique Menou, the Global Head of Stakeholder Engagement and Issuer Communication for MSCI ESG Research, joined the European Commission’s Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance. Linda-Eling Lee has been selected by the CFA Institute to join their ESG Working Group for 2020 Stuart Doole will join the 2nd Ad-Hoc Working Group (AHWG) Meeting EU Ecolabel Criteria for Retail Financial Products, MSCI is a member of FCLTGlobal, an independent not-for-profit organization that works to encourage a longer-term focus in business and investment decision-making. We are also a proud signatory to the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, as well as the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IIGCC). MSCI is committed to monitor the development of ESG and climate integration, sustainability disclosure as well as regulations including the EU Sustainable Finance package. Click here for more details 1MSCI press release 2MSCI ESG Indexes and MSCI Analytics utilize information from, but are not provided by, MSCI ESG Research LLC. MSCI Equity Indexes are products of MSCI Inc. and are administered by MSCI UK Limited Related Content Contact Us For specific questions about product offerings or our website, please contact us. Contact Us Corporate Responsibility In changing times, MSCI’s commitment to its employees and the wider communities in which it operates is paramount. Learn More Our People At MSCI our success is powered by new voices and new ideas. Read their Stories Locations Legal Modern Slavery Statement Privacy notice Index regulation Site map Cookies Use of ISO standards Subscribe Contact Us © 2021 MSCI Inc. 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