Posted on April 2, 2018 by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist
#Corporate Citizenship #Corporate Responsibility #Corporate Sustainability #RobecoSAM #Sustainability Professionals #Sustainability Reporting
The Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are some of the most important and widely-used benchmarks for global investors – the suppliers of capital to the corporate sector. The “DJSI” benchmarks include the well-known “World” and “North America” indexes.
The DJSI are managed by RobecoSAM which described them as a family of best-in-class indices (launched in 1999) that evaluate the sustainability performance of thousands of publicly-traded companies. The indices track the stock performance of the world’s leading companies across 60 industries in terms of economic, environmental and social criteria.
RobecoSAM is a strategic partner of the S&P Dow Jones Indices and the RobecoSAM “Smart ESG Methodology” is used to generate ESG factor scores to construct a family of indices; the methodology is used for example in constructing the S&P ESG Factor Weighted Index family.
RobecoSAM has been driving innovation of the fields of ESG investing…the indices are built on the strength of rigorous internal analytics and research. An important input to the process is the annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment (the “CSA”) that RobecoSAM explains in this way:
“The quality of a company’s strategy and management and its performance in dealing with opportunities and risks deriving from economic, environmental and social development can be quantified and used to identify and select leading companies for investment purposes. For this reason, RobecoSAM developed the CSA to help identify those companies that are best equipped to recognize and respond to emerging opportunities and risks resulting from global sustainability trends.”
Very soon, the CSA questionnaire will be landing in the offices of leading US companies for internal managements to complete and return to RobecoSAM as the process for adjusting the family of funds is underway (the results will be known in early fall). One day after the Skytop Strategies “ESG Summit 4” conference, G&A Institute in collaboration with RobecoSAM is presenting a workshop to help American corporate managements in the response process in New York City on April 6th.
Special Note
Lindsey Kauffman, Environmental Lead at Owens Corning will be at the workshop and will share her insight on leading the CSA/DJSI response for her company. Owens Corning is the Industry Leader in overall score/ranking as well as the Industry Leader in all three dimensions.
Skytop’s CEO Chris Skroupa interviewed RobecoSAM’s Robert Dornau and G&A’s Louis Coppola on the workshop and the importance of the DJSI CSA questionnaire to corporate managements. There’s lots of important details for you in the Top Story this week from the Forbesinterviews.
If you’d like to learn more about G&A’s advisory services for responding to the RobecoSAM CSA please contact Louis Coppola at lcoppola@ga-institute.com.
Top Story
The Corporate Sustainability Assessment; Important ESG Events In Early April
(Thursday – March 29, 2018) Source: Forbes – interviews by Christopher P. Skroupa – The RobecoSAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment is about to hit the desks in many publicly traded companies. Are executives aware and what are they doing to prepare? The CSA is a “living document” – what were they key changes in 2018?
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