LONDON—Dow Jones Indices, one of the world’s leading index providers, and RobecoSAM, the investment specialist that has focused exclusively on Sustainability Investing for over 23 years, announced the results of the annual Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) review.
Hospitality companies included this year include InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, Whitbread PLC, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., Las Vegas Sands Corp., and Shangri-La Asia Ltd.
The new component lists for all the DJSI are available on the RobecoSAM website. All changes are effective on Monday, September 24, 2018.
Launched in 1999, the DJSI World represents the gold standard for corporate sustainability and is the first global index to track the leading sustainability-driven companies based on RobecoSAM’s analysis of financially material Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors and S&P DJI’s robust index methodology.
Annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment
RobecoSAM assesses the world’s largest companies via its annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA), which uses a consistent, rules-based methodology to convert an average of 600 data points per company into one overall score. This score determines inclusion in the DJSI. As more companies dedicate themselves to sustainable business practices, the number of companies that want their efforts measured and assessed via the CSA continues to rise (+5 percent in 2018).
RobecoSAM CSA provides increased added value to companies and investors. Every year RobecoSAM makes updates to the CSA methodology to raise the bar and help ensure companies continue to measure and report on current and upcoming material ESG topics. By making significant aspects of the CSA methodology and results public, investors are granted access to RobecoSAM’s insights into companies’ sustainability practices, the breadth and depth of which remain unmatched and act as an essential compass for investors navigating sustainability investing.
In updating the 2018 scoring methodology, RobecoSAM introduced significant updates to the Media & Stakeholder Analysis (MSA) methodology. The MSA forms an integral part of the CSA and specifically looks at companies’ controversies and helps RobecoSAM to measure companies’ adherence to the sustainable business principles they advocate and communicate to investors and other stakeholders.
Scoring Methodology Updated
As participation continues to grow and CSA scores improve in tandem with global improvements in corporate sustainability disclosure and performance, RobecoSAM has updated the MSA scoring methodology to better differentiate company sustainability performance for investors and other users of the CSA results.
RobecoSAM’s commitment to increasing transparency among company disclosures also extends to its own information sharing practices. Coinciding with this announcement, RobecoSAM has for the first time published detailed information about the MSA process, from what constitutes an MSA case to how confirmed cases are scored. This information is available in the CSA Resource Center.
Furthermore, this year RobecoSAM has expanded its public recognition of leading companies: the 24 Industry Group Leader reports published along with the annual DJSI review, have been replaced with 60 Industry Leader reports also publicly available. The heightened level of publicly available ESG information is designed to ensure all interested parties continue to benefit from RobecoSAM’s expertise in assessing corporate sustainability practices.
