FactSet's Best ESG Stories of 2021

The future of finance is rapidly changing with the ongoing growth of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. Here we've collected five of Insight's best-read ESG stories of 2021. Read on and learn how ESG is playing a key role in regulatory compliance, corporate earnings, and fixed income.

A Massive Shift in the ESG Landscape Is Coming with Mandatory Disclosure Regulations

Integrating SASB Standards into a Dynamic ESG Composite Score

In this article, FactSet's Shirley Birman describes how the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP), one of Canada’s largest pension investment managers, leveraged FactSet to develop an ESG Composite score that enables PSP’s investment teams to integrate ESG information with data-driven insights. Read more.

Record-High Number of S&P 500 Companies Discuss "ESG" on Q2 Earnings Calls

During each corporate earnings season, it is not unusual for companies to comment on their ongoing corporate goals and initiatives. According to FactSet's John Butters, of the S&P 500 companies that conducted earnings conference calls from June 15 through September 5, 150 cited the term “ESG” during their earnings calls. This number marks a tie with Q1 2021 for the highest overall number of S&P 500 companies citing “ESG” on earnings calls going back at least 10 years. Read more.

The ABCs of ESG Data

Earlier this year, FactSet’s Vanessa Barnett, Global Head of ESG, spoke with Compliance Solutions Strategies (CSS) to discuss the latest news on the European Union (EU) Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), the new details on the Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) for Level 2 SFDR, and how financial firms can manage their ESG data for Level 1. Read more.

ESG Investing in the U.S. High Yield Corporate Bond Market

FactSet's Emil Margaritov set out to answer this question: is it possible to build a systematic, long-only, smart-beta framework that gives investors an enhanced exposure to U.S. high-yield (HY) corporate bond issuers that score highly on ESG dimensions, while at the same time, preserves major performance and risk characteristics of investing in a traditional value-weighted U.S. HY corporate bond benchmark index? Read more.

The information contained in this article is not investment advice. FactSet does not endorse or recommend any investments and assumes no liability for any consequence relating directly or indirectly to any action or inaction taken based on the information contained in this article.