Index constructor and ratings agency MSCI has announced that ESG-metrics have now been integrated into its risk analytics systems.
The company said it had made the changes because of rising demand from investors for sustainability data to be weighed-up during the investment process.
“Asset owners are increasingly demanding systematic integration of ESG data into their investment process,” the company’s managing director and head of analytics, Jorge Mina, said in a statement.
“We are pleased to offer the full suite of our MSCI ESG Ratings and tools to help our clients incorporate ESG analysis into the risk management process, and construct ESG and climate-integrated portfolios.”
MSCI said that its multi-asset class risk and performance analytics clients will now be able to integrate ESG ratings, data and indexes into their security selection, portfolio construction, stress testing, and risk and performance attribution analysis.
The company’s toolkit allows investors observe ESG exposures for around 650,000 equity and fixed income securities and more than 8 million active equity and bond derivatives.
Remy Briand, managing director and head of ESG at MSCI said that the inclusion of MSCI ESG Ratings and MSCI ESG Indexes into the portfolio and risk management systems represented “the next step in the evolution of MSCI’s support of ESG investing.”
He added: “Conversations with our clients are shifting from why ESG matters to how to implement ESG to make better informed investment decisions.”
The company said that more than $108bn (€92bn) in institutional, retail and exchange-traded fund assets are currently benchmarked to MSCI ESG indices.
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