The two big financial data providers, Refinitiv and SPGI, released improvements to their methodologies to score listed company performance across social value themes including emissions, environmental product innovation, diversity and inclusion, human rights, and shareholder access.

Few business valuers include social value and sustainability factors in their valuation reports, though most analysts realise either the cash flow or intangible brand impact of companies that align with good corporate values. More investors and financial analysts recognise that environmental and cultural behaviours do drive tangible results and intangible value. The Refinitiv and SPGI upgrades provide an easy way to measure this performance for guideline comparable companies for valuers who have access to either of these expensive platforms.

Refinitiv’s upgrade adds materiality features to their ESG scoring metrics to reduce industry size and transparency biases. S&P Global launched their Global ESG Scores with 20-year coverage of 7,300 companies. They base their scores on the widely recognized SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment evaluations. These Global ESG Scores are available through SPGI’s XPressfeed.