We recognize an increasing desire for more information and clarity regarding how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) characteristics are factored into our credit ratings.
ESG factors play a prominent role in creditworthiness, they can – and do – influence credit quality, specifically, the capacity and willingness of borrowers to meet financial commitments. They have always played a prominent role in creditworthiness and, thus, in our credit ratings – even before the term ESG was coined more than a decade ago.
Our ESG credit indicators provide additional disclosure and transparency at the entity level and reflect our opinion of the influence that environmental, social, and governance factors have on our credit rating analysis. They are not sustainability ratings or a stand-alone assessment of an entity's ESG performance.
Here we articulate the principles that S&P Global Ratings applies to incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) credit factors into our credit ratings analysis. Within the criteria we define ESG credit factors as those ESG factors that can materially influence the creditworthiness of a rated entity or issue and for which we have sufficient visibility and certainty to include in our credit rating analysis.
Read our criteriaHere we introduce our ESG credit indicators, a complimentary assessment to our existing Credit Rating analysis. Whereas our ESG Criteria seek to enhance transparency in how and where we capture ESG factors in credit ratings, our ESG credit indicators provide additional disclosure by reflecting our opinion of how material the influence of ESG factors is on our credit rating analysis.
Explore the definitionsHere we provide descriptions of key environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors that have affected creditworthiness or may influence future creditworthiness.
Take a closer lookWe disclose our ESG credit indicators in a series of sector reports, for rated issuers across Corporates, Infrastructure, Banks, Insurance and Structured Finance. Our ESG credit indicators provide additional disclosure and transparency at the entity level and reflect our opinion of the influence that environmental, social, and governance factors have on our credit rating analysis. They are not a sustainability rating or an S&P Global Ratings ESG Evaluation.
