Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure is becoming more and more important as companies compete for new customers, management, or investors. Fortunately, new tools for ESG data and analytics are being created every day.
Global fintech Broadridge Financial Solutions just launched a new web-based ESG disclosure and data analytics benchmarking tool to help companies track, gather and analyze their peers as well as their own ESG data.
The ESG Analyzer gathers public ESG disclosures and metrics on over 5,000 companies in the U.S.
It provides more than 2 million data points on 385 topics specifically from issuer data. The online platform provides an easy-to-use platform that uses artificial intelligence to gather ESG data and provides links to its sources. Companies then have the ability to benchmark and analyze the information or export the data for use in other applications.
“This is the perfect tool for management to understand their strengths and weaknesses on ESG issues, enabling them to see how they compare to peers and create a plan to improve their performance and disclosures where needed,” said Joseph Vicari, vice president, and ESG practice lead at Broadridge.
With the ESG Analyzer, companies view all their ESG metrics on one dashboard and can then compare them with peers. This helps to understand how various stakeholders view their company.
It also helps guide companies in their disclosure and compliance processes.
By getting access to other firms’ ESG disclosures and performance metrics, they can better adjust their strategies to compete in the marketplace.
The 385 ESG topics cover environmental factors such as climate change, energy, resource management, policy, and reporting. On the social front, the analyzer provides information on communities, such as their development, products, human rights, and supply chains. It also looks at employee compensation, benefits, labor rights, training, health, and safety. Governance metrics include board composition, ethics, transparency, and reporting.
Companies can search topics by keyword or within each category. They can also filter by disclosure status, standard, and bookmarks. They can further consult source documents supporting the disclosed data, evaluate disclosure percentages by industry and sector, and rank by performance. Peer companies can be compared on a side-by-side basis. Finally, a company can uncover how it measures against its peers and what improvements need to be made.
The ESG Analyzer uses a variety of sources to track disclosures, such as those from Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), Task Force on Climate Related Financial Discloser (TCFD), and United Nations Global Impact (UNGC).
This is not the first ESG product from Broadridge. The fintech company also provides a variety of other ESG management and analytics tools for companies. Those include ESG Access, a detailed view of factors that affect a company’s ESG ranking, as well as carbon disclosure services, and ESG advisory services.
