Highlights

22nd April 2023

Publicly disclosed data can come in many formats, and rigorous quality assessment is essential to identify and adjust potential errors.

During the last reporting cycle, we uncovered and adjusted errors and inconsistencies in 47% of company disclosure through our annual research engagement

S&P Global Sustainable1 is launching a new program rewarding the identification of errors in our environmental dataset by planting trees to maximize the impact

Working towards better data quality is essential to make sure clients have the right information to make decisions linked to the impacts of climate change

In sustainability data, quality is critical


Environmental data is critical to our clients in many ways. Banks use the data to make lending decisions as part of their net-zero commitments. Investors use the data to evaluate investments and decarbonize their portfolios. Corporations report the data to their regulators and evaluate capital investments from an emissions impact perspective. For all these activities, the quality of the data is critical. At S&P Global Sustainable1, we want to advance this quality imperative. To this end, we’re putting our money where our mouth is and planting five trees for every qualifying and corrected error identified in our public company disclosure based environmental data. 

We collect environmental data for more than 20,000 listed companies worldwide on a wide variety of measures, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air pollution, water use, waste disposal, and other land and water pollutants. This data can then be used to assess environmental costs, identify and manage environmental and climate risk, and to conduct peer and portfolio analysis from a climate and environmental perspective. 

The data comes to us from many different sources — such as Sustainability or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports, company websites and public disclosures made to CDP. Adding a layer of complexity, this data can be reported in many different languages and formats. And as each data point is connected to a larger data universe, any error can have an impact on downstream calculations and derived metrics and reports. 

Because quality is so critical, we do not take corporate disclosure at face value and put environmental disclosures through a rigorous quality process to analyze, standardize, validate and, when necessary, correct data. 

During the last environmental reporting cycle, we uncovered and adjusted errors and inconsistencies in 47% of company disclosure through our annual research engagement. Our analysts engaged personally with companies to correct 5,009 reporting errors in 3,060 company disclosures. Read more about our quality and transparency investments: The Quality Imperative. 

Now, we want to go a step further and reward those helping us in that quality assessment. 

Launching our new data quality commitment on Earth Day 2024

Earth Day holds special significance for S&P Global Sustainable1—not just because of its environmental importance on the world stage, but also because it marks the anniversary of our business being launched within S&P Global. In 2024, S&P Global Sustainable1 is celebrating Earth Day and also recognizing our partners and stakeholders by launching a revamped quality program, in which you can help improve our data and our planet. From today, when you use the usual customer support channels to identify errors in our environmental data, we will plant trees as a thank you for every qualified and corrected error. 

We’ll do this through EcoMatcher, a Certified B Corporation that plants trees and complete forests with vetted foundations and NGOs from around the world.

Our goal in to provide transparency to make decisions linked to the impacts of climate change through better data. The rising awareness about climate change impacts and natural resources constraints comes with increasing demand for transparency on corporate environmental performance, and we continue to invest in new technologies to improve data timeliness and quality.  

The time to take action towards securing a net-zero and sustainable future is now. At S&P Global, we are committed to delivering transparent, rigorous and relevant sustainability data to accelerate progress in the world. Let’s all work together to play our part.