Spotlight on ESG Ratings and Rankings

Rapidly evolving ESG data and tools can help you meet your investment and sustainability goals.

Investors are increasingly interested in companies’ performance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues such as carbon emissions, workforce diversity and data security. All that interest — and the investor activism, proxy voting and regulation that have accompanied it — have motivated companies to report on ESG performance in addition to their traditional shareholder reports and disclosures. More than 90% of S&P 500 companies issued sustainability reports in 2020, up from 20% in 2012.¹

Many policymakers, regulators and nonprofits have responded to the rise of ESG investing by creating a collection of standards for companies that report on ESG. These standards can make it easier for investors to compare ESG performance across companies and industries. In addition, certain financial research firms now use companies’ reported data to rate individual companies on ESG performance, much like credit agencies use companies’ balance sheets and risk exposures to create credit ratings.

With the rise of robust, standardized ESG data and analysis, your financial advisor can provide greater insight into your portfolio’s ESG profile and explore ways you might make your investments more consistent with your goals.

“If you have an ESG preference, our job is to link it to fulfillment solutions,” says Peter Mladina, director of portfolio research at Northern Trust Wealth Management.

How to Interpret ESG Reporting Data and Ratings

A wide variety of tools can help you achieve your sustainable investing goals. The information they provide can help you and your advisors build and maintain a portfolio that is consistent with your objectives — whether the goal is to avoid companies you consider objectionable, to manage risks related to ESG factors or to try to use the portfolio to support companies making progress on ESG-related topics that are important to you.

Northern Trust uses MSCI ESG Research to seek to identify the best ESG strategies. MSCI provides investors with a broad set of fund-level and company specific ESG data points, ESG ratings, ESG controversy monitoring data, and business involvement tools. These may focus on particular sustainable investing elements, such as carbon emissions, labor practices or gender diversity.

Our ESG analysis also helps demonstrate how adjustments to your investments would affect exposure to specific ESG criteria. For example, you may want to emphasize the most environmentally or socially responsible corporations in your portfolio without meaningfully altering your diversification. To pursue those goals, your advisor may recommend using a best-in-class approach² that emphasizes companies with leading ESG practices in their industries. Using the ESG Portfolio Report, they can show how implementing that approach would affect your portfolio’s ESG profile and investment characteristics, such as expected risk and return.

 “The most important thing is for you to understand any tradeoffs you’re making,” says Mladina. “Your advisor can lay it all out for you.”

If you decide to modify your portfolio, make a plan to evolve it over time. The plan should plot out ways to increase its alignment with your ESG goals while keeping in mind practical considerations, such as the tax consequences of sales.

Northern Trust is here to help you reach your investment goals. If your objectives include integrating ESG considerations in your portfolio, using your investment capital to express your values or managing your ESG risk exposures, talk with your financial advisor. ESG ratings and rankings now give them powerful tools that can provide a more holistic view of risks and opportunities — resulting in better-informed investments and helping you align your investments with your beliefs.