Corporate-level Analysis

S&P Global Ratings ESG Evaluation

The ESG Evaluation is a forward-looking opinion of a company’s ability to manage future ESG risks and opportunities. With company permission, the ESG Evaluation uses company responses from the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) and is further supported by deeper engagement between the Ratings’ Analysts, company management and a board member. Each ESG Evaluation comprises two inputs: the ESG Profile and Preparedness opinion.

"The ING ESG Evaluation is definitely a welcome development – ideally we’d like to see most banks covered that already have an S&P rating."

- Satish Pulle, Portfolio Manager, Wells Fargo Asset Management

ESG Profile

• The ESG Profile score summarizes S&P Global Ratings opinion of the current-to-near-term effectiveness of the entity’s ability to manage its risk exposure and uncover opportunities relative to peers.
• The ESG Risk Atlas consolidates our analytical sector knowledge and expertise and provides the foundation for our macro sector and regional analysis, which makes the ESG Evaluation comparable cross-industry and cross-region.
• In order to obtain an ESG Evaluation, companies are invited to complete the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA). The private and public responses provided by a company in the CSA questionnaire are used by S&P Global Ratings’ analysts as a starting point for their comparative ESG analysis of the company. This is bolstered by information gleaned from direct discussions between the company and S&P Global Ratings analysts.

Preparedness Opinion

The Preparedness opinion is a qualitative view of a company’s capacity to anticipate and adapt to a variety of long-term disruptions. To develop the Preparedness opinion, S&P Global Ratings analysts meet with a company’s senior management and a board member to establish their awareness and assessment of emerging trends and potential business disruptors, as well as associated long-term planning.

The ESG Profile score and Preparedness opinion are combined to produce a relative overall ESG Evaluation score on a 100-point scale. Evaluated companies receive a report which details the analysis and delves into the rationale behind the scores. This report can be kept confidential to use as an internal strategy tool or shared with investors and stakeholders as companies see fit.
If requested, S&P Global Ratings may assess a company against TCFD disclosure standards.

ESG in Credit Ratings

S&P Global Ratings has long considered Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors in its credit ratings, and we capture ESG factors in many areas of our methodology.

ESG risks and opportunities can affect an entity's capacity to meet its financial commitments in many ways. S&P Global Ratings incorporates these considerations in its ratings methodology and analytics, which enables analysts to factor in short-, medium-, and long-term impacts--both qualitative and quantitative--to multiple steps of their credit analysis.

Our ESG Industry Report Cards provide insights across corporates, infrastructure, banks, insurance, and supranationals sectors, as well as project finance. These reports cover close to 70 subsectors and more the 1,250 individual entities.