IMD & IRD Awards 2023: Best ESG data provider—Bloomberg

Overview

Bloomberg’s ESG Data Solutions provide a variety of datasets designed to meet client needs, from integrating ESG as a new investment strategy to complying with regulations or managing risk.

The solution

Bloomberg provides investors with access to transparent, consistent, and comparable ESG data, covering more than 15,000 companies globally, representing approximately 90% of global market capitalization. This includes more than 5,100 data fields and incorporates third-party data. Bloomberg’s ESG data, research and analytics span regulatory compliance, carbon emissions, sustainable debt, scores, indices, and climate risk. Clients can access this data via the Bloomberg Terminal or by data license agreements.

Secret sauce

Bloomberg helps firms set and manage sustainable investments and mitigate related risks by providing high-quality ESG data, analytics, and research, with a focus on transparency. The firm’s ESG data solutions help promote a sustainable financial system by working with investors, policymakers and international institutions. Through membership with policy initiatives and roles in the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), and the creation of the Net Zero Public Data Utility, Bloomberg is helping to drive measurable, local action and is supporting the market’s response to climate change.

Recent enhancements

• Capturing financially material ESG data on over 15,000 companies and 474,000 active securities (up from 12,600 companies in 2022)
• Doubling the number of companies for which it provides scope 1, 2, and 3 carbon emissions data to more than 100,000 companies (up from 50,000 in 2022), so that clients can identify carbon transition-related risks and opportunities
• Increasing ESG data fields to more than 5,100 (up from over 3,100 in 2022) and providing scores on 5,500 companies, so that investors can track more variables and gain deeper insights

Future objectives

• Accompanying Bloomberg’s financial materiality scores with data and tools to help investors measure the impact on key environmental and social issues
• Working with policy makers and industry associations to ensure the right data and tools exist to support interoperability of ESG-based regulations worldwide, ensuring clients have the requisite data to satisfy their reporting obligations
• Enabling investors to measure the net zero commitments and performance of their investee companies

Why they won

Bloomberg wins the best ESG data provider category for the first time since it was added to the IMD & IRD Awards line-up in 2021, thanks to its Bloomberg ESG Data Solutions offering. The service provides investors with ESG data spanning 15,000+ companies globally, representing an astonishing 90% of global market capitalization. However, company coverage is only half the challenge for ESG providers―the other half pertains to the veracity and transparency of the data they provide the market, especially given the prevalence of greenwashing. To that end, Bloomberg focuses specifically on transparency―it recently expanded the number of ESG data fields it includes to more than 5,000 and the number of the companies it provides proprietary scores on to 5,500, providing investors with deeper insights into the data (companies) they are investing in.