Sustainability Yearbook 2016
The Corporate Sustainability Assessment Engine
RobecoSAM has been conducting the annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) since 1999. Though originally developed to select the components of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, over the years the CSA and its many applications have expanded to encompass a wide range of activities at RobecoSAM. In fact, the CSA is the engine that powers everything we do at RobecoSAM, ranging from research and indexing to our asset management activities.
We passionately believe that integrating financially relevant sustainability criteria into financial analysis helps us make better informed investment decisions. Therefore it only made sense that the insights from the CSA would also be applied to a variety of uses. Not only does the CSA determine which companies make it into the DJSI, the insights derived from the CSA are fully integrated into our asset management, engagement and sustainability benchmarking activities. Data from the CSA also form the basis of the ESG information that our parent company Robeco integrates into its mainstream fundamental and quantitative equity strategies as well as its corporate credits strategies.
In addition to continuously refining the CSA methodology to ensure that its criteria remain financially relevant, our Sustainability Investing Research Analysts frequently dig deeper into the CSA’s data to conduct sustainability research, publish relevant white papers, and generate innovative product ideas.
Thus, the CSA continues to serve as the leading global benchmark for corporate sustainability, and continues to provide the basis for new, cutting-edge sustainability products for investors. The CSA remains the foundation of such product development, helping corporations and investors achieve long-term value from sustainability.
We take you behind the scenes onto the RobecoSAM Sustainability Investing factory floor, and highlight how the various outputs from the CSA make their way throughout the entire organization and into a range of end products and services offered by RobecoSAM, our parent company Robeco, and our index partner S&P Dow Jones Indices.
