Why Participate?

Aligned with leading sustainability frameworks, we work with globally recognized sustainability research and reporting organizations such as the GRI, CDP, CDP Water, GRESB, and EDGE Certified Foundation to align our methodology and questions on specific topics. Not only does this help ensure that our analysis is consistent with leading sustainability research, but it also enables companies to leverage CSA responses to complete other sustainability questionnaires and vice-versa.

The CSA enables you to establish a baseline for your sustainability performance and to conduct competitive benchmarking. It helps you learn from the top-performing companies to improve the performance of your company.

Our Benchmarking Database provides an in-depth assessment of your company’s sustainability performance that allows you to monitor KPIs over time and can serve as an essential tool to improve operations and your sustainability ranking in your industry.

A Benchmarking Database empowering your company to conduct multi-year trend analysis and gain detailed insight on the rankings within your peer industry.

Personalized feedback for companies interested in a more in-depth analysis of their sustainability performance. S&P Global offers different customized benchmarking solutions, including detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis and a discussion of the companies’ strengths and weaknesses compared to their industry peers.

CSA results are not only an important resource to the company, but also to employees, customers, the financial community, and NGOs. The results serve a wide range of stakeholders and applications ranging from company benchmarking to indices to asset management. Participation in the CSA offers various opportunities for sharing your company’s achievements with shareholders and stakeholders.

Each year, we publish the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook based on the results of the CSA. The top 15% of companies from each industry are included based on performance. If your company qualifies for one of these categories, you will receive the emblem for internal and external marketing and communication purposes.

Over the past 25 years, the CSA has grown into a leading corporate sustainability database. Hundreds of clients from more than 12 industries and over 50 countries directly subscribe to ESG Scores and ESG Raw Data as a key output of the CSA. This group includes financial institutions managing $35 trillion in assets who can utilize these scores and data to benchmark corporate performance, manage investment portfolios, allocate financial capital, and build engagement strategies. Additionally, ESG Scores and ESG Raw Data are integral to the sustainability and climate indices produced by S&P Dow Jones Indices, such as the S&P 500 Scored & Screened Index, further extending their reach to even more clients and market segments.

As market interest in sustainability has grown, we are working to address the demand for a holistic overview of corporate sustainability performance. Starting with the 2023 methodology year, we began to apply modeling approaches where disclosure is unavailable in the CSA to provide clients with the S&P Global ESG Scores. The S&P Global CSA Score will be a key component of the S&P Global ESG Score. The S&P Global ESG Score will include modeling approaches — but not for all questions.

Subscribers to the Capital IQ ESG Scores module can see a company’s CSA Scores and ESG Scores from the dimension level (i.e., Environmental, Social, Governance & Economic) down to the question level. Subscribers also get access to the associated guidance that is provided to participating companies within the questionnaire, and can in some cases, view the datapoints from a company’s response.