Special Report – Sustainability Finance: The Unstoppable Train

The final part of a special three part Sustainability Finance Report by Reynard Loki.
Dec 18, 2014 10:00 AM ET

Originally published on CSRWire Talkback

INVESTOR DEMAND FUELS BLOOMBERG’S ESG INTEGRATION

At Bloomberg, the demand for ESG is clear: Hits on ESG data have doubled each year on average. Unique ESG users—there are currently about 10,000—are growing at an average annual rate of about 40 percent and includes both mainstream and specialist professionals.

"Our users cut across finance, business, services, academia and other areas with the buy-side accounting for the majority of ESG users," said Suki.

"The inclusion of ESG information on platforms such as Bloomberg is yet another positive indication of the mainstreaming of sustainability in capital markets," said Michael Jantzi, CEO of Sustainalytics, in a press release in May announcing the availability of the company's ESG research data to the more than 320,000 Bloomberg Professional service subscribers. "Having corporate ESG performance data housed alongside more traditional financial information allows investors to more easily integrate ESG factors into their fundamental analysis."

"Our fixed income integration effort comes on the heels of about five years of building our ESG databases, integrating that data into mainstream financial and portfolio analysis functions and building models in Excel specifically for ESG analysis," said Suki.

EXPANDING UNIVERSE: BLOOMBERG’S ESG COVERAGE

The current coverage of ESG data for companies in the main Bloomberg corporate bond indices—which includes company-reported ESG data, but not third-party information—is substantial, particularly among high-grade reporters that align more directly with larger cap public equity issuers. For USD high-grade, where Bloomberg indexes some 5,000 bond issues, ESG coverage is about 80 percent.

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Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company’s strength – delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately – is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to more than 315,000 subscribers globally.  For more information, visit www.bloomberg.com.