ESG Performance Score Core & Plus

The ESG Performance Score provides investors and corporates with a transparent sustainability assessment of corporate entities. The ESG Performance Score measures company performance relative to salient sustainability issues across the spectrum of environmental, social, and governance pillars. The score is driven by a sector-specific model that emphasises financially material issues. The definition of financial materiality is inspired by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and refers to information relevant to investor decision-making.

The ESG Performance Score comes with a transparent methodology and full disclosure of the underlying data. This allows users to understand the performance drivers, explain score changes at each level of the assessment, and drill down to the associated raw data points including evidence*. The score is designed with both investors and corporates in mind. Investors can use the score to identify companies that are more likely to outperform over the long run and create long-term value for shareholders. Corporates can use the score to systematically assess their performance, conduct peer comparisons, and identify disclosure gaps.

The ESG Performance Score has two complementary offerings:

1. ESG Performance Score – CORE: Point-in-time scores showing the sustainability performance of companies based on publicly available company-reported data. Scores are derived using a transparent aggregation methodology.
2. ESG Performance Score – PLUS: The PLUS score is the CORE score including Media and NGO coverage. It accounts evident in news sources and NGO reports. Combined, CORE and PLUS scores allow users to differentiate performance based on company-reported data (annual) and global news (daily).

The ESG Performance Score includes the following components in both "Core" and "Plus" offerings:

• Total Scores – Total Aggregated Score from the 26 Categories.
• Pillar Scores – Aggregated Scores for traditional ESG pillars.
• Dimension Scores – Aggregated Scores for 5 sustainability dimensions.
• Category Scores – 26 Category Scores.
• Category Weights – 26 Weights applied to Category Scores to derive Total Scores.
• Disclosure Score & Number of Metrics used for the score.

The ESG Performance Score CORE is a point-in-time score showing the sustainability performance of companies based on publicly available company data. The ESG Performance Score CORE is calculated in four steps:

1. Data Collection
2. Data Processing
3. Category Score Calculation
4. Materiality Score Calculation

The ESG Performance Score is powered by ESG Book’s proprietary data. ESG Book proprietary data includes 450+ indicators across two data modules - ESG Raw Data and Emissions Plus - and covers 9000+ companies. This data is collected in-house by sustainability experts and validated using more than 110 checks including checks on completeness, conformity, validity, accuracy, consistency, uniqueness, reasonableness, and timelines.

Upon collection, data points are standardized to SI units (for quantitative metrics), USD Thousands (for monetary metrics), and Tonnes of CO2 Equivalent (for Kyoto Gases).

The standardized data is used to create additional metrics including intensities, proportions, and growth rates. Derived metrics are calculated by integrating one or multiple metrics. An example is Scope 1 emissions intensity, which results from dividing the Scope 1 emissions by the revenue.

The ESG Performance Score is powered by 202 metrics from the ESG Raw Data and Emissions Plus modules, as well as our proprietary set of derived metrics. These metrics include quantitative metrics (e.g., injury rate) as well as categorical metrics (e.g., presence of GHG emissions reduction targets). The metrics measure preparation, i.e., what a company is doing to achieve sustainability goals (e.g., health and safety training), as well as outcomes, i.e., the actual sustainability achievements (e.g., injury rates).

Most companies report sustainability data on a yearly basis. To enable daily-updated scores, we forward-fill the data. We consider sustainability data valid for a period of up to two years. After this period, data expires and is no longer used in scores. Our scores are powered by the most recent disclosures available. Hence, as soon as new data from a more recent disclosure is captured, it is used in our scores.

These metrics are transformed to a uniform scale ranging from 0 to 100. This is done using a relative scoring approach. Relative scoring expresses company performance relative to all other companies in a universe. Put simply, the transformed data indicates where within the universe a company stands. A score of 100 indicates the best and a score of 0 indicates the worst performance. A value of 50 indicates that the company's performance is average.

The Category Scores offer a nuanced perspective on companies’ sustainability performance relative to 26 sustainability issues. The Category Scores are inspired by SASB and provide the foundation for the higher-level Materiality Scores, i.e., Total, Dimension, and Pillar Scores.

The 26 Category Scores are calculated based on the input metrics. Metrics are mapped to the respective categories under consideration of the following guiding principles: (a) comprehensive operationalization of the topics, (b) sufficient metrics for all industries, (c) inclusion of industry-specific metrics, and (d) balanced number of metrics across categories.

Category Scores are calculated as the average of the underlying transformed metrics, ignoring missing values. To receive a category score, companies need to be part of our scoring universe (see Insights: Universe Creation) and fulfil additional disclosure requirements. The resulting scores range from 0 to 100 with higher values corresponding to better performance.

The materiality scores encompass two levels of abstraction. The Total Score provides a condensed view by expressing companies’ sustainability performance in a single number. Dimension and Pillar Scores provide insights into the performance relative to specific areas of sustainability. The calculation of these scores follows a similar logic. The following paragraphs first explain this logic by means of the Total Score.

The Total Score is calculated from the 26 Category Scores using a systematic weighting approach that accounts for industry and sector materiality. Score calculation encompasses four steps:

1. Determine Material Categories - For each company, we classify the categories as (a) industry-material, (b) sector-material, and (c) immaterial.
2. Calibrate Weights - Based on this classification and the available Category Scores, we determine the weights. We use a proportional weighting approach meaning that the relative importance of industry-material, sector-material, and immaterial categories is always the same. The exact weights depend on a company’s disclosure pattern and industry/sector. Specifically, the weights are calibrated based on the number of sector-material, industry-material, and immaterial categories for which a company has scores. Weights are calibrated separately for every company. The weights for the Total Score are part of the data feed and can also be viewed on the ESG Book Platform.
3. Apply Weights - Finally, the Total Score is calculated as a weighted average of the Category Scores. Each Category Score is multiplied by its respective weight based on its classification as industry-material, sector-material, or immaterial, and the results are summed up. For the Total Score to be calculated, companies need to fulfil minimal disclosure requirements.
4. Calculate Disclosure Score - The Category and Materiality Scores express company performance based on disclosed data. The Total Score, for example, illustrates how well a company performs across all 26 sustainability issues based on the disclosed data. The Category and Materiality scores are complemented by the Disclosure Score. This score shows disclosure completeness relative to industry metrics on a scale from 0 to 1, with 1 indicating full disclosure.

The ESG Performance Score PLUS provides media- and NGO coverage-corrected scores that account for recent sustainability events and incorporate the public perception of company. For more detail on the full methodology, please reach out to obtain the methodology document.

Pricing is determined on a use-case basis, thus please contact for more information.

When requesting please include the following information:

• Organization Name
• Position (non-mandatory)
• Business Email Address or Telephone Number
• Country
• Use-case

This product is allowed for internal use only, users are not allowed to distribute the data externally.

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