Robeco to openly share sustainable investing data

Written by Dan McGrath

31/10/2023

Robeco has announced plans to openly share its sustainable investing (SI) data, becoming one of the first asset managers globally to do so.

The firm has said it is broadening its SI open access initiative to the public, including companies and NGOs, in an effort to promote data transparency and enhance the quality of sustainable investing.

The initiative to publicly share corporate sustainable development goal (SDG) scores and country environment, social and governance (ESG) scores was initially launched in August 2022 for clients and academics, with the aim of contributing to new standards in sustainable investing and improve the quality of SI data, following the principle of the “wisdom of the crowd”.

Currently, through the firm’s client portal, over 900 clients and academics have access to its SI intellectual property.

Robeco said that sustainable investors face the critical task of systematically assessing the sustainability performance of the companies they invest in. To achieve this, the firm believes investors rely on ratings that provide insight into how sustainable a company’s practices are.

The firm stated that it recognises the importance of accurate and impactful sustainability assessments and has been developing its SDG scores since 2017.

Its SDG score focuses on impact materially, assessing the extent to which companies make positive and negative contributions to the sustainable development goals.

Head of SI at Robeco, Carola van Lamoen, said: “We believe the widest possible incorporation of SI data is crucial to create real world impact. With our SI open access initiative, we collect feedback to improve the quality of sustainable investing data, and by doing so, we can help investors to integrate SI in their approaches.

“Furthermore, by collaborating with academics we aim to contribute to the advancement of education and research. Expanding the accessibility of our SI open access initiative, means that we are inviting more external perspectives and feedback, reaffirming our commitment to data transparency and innovation in the field of sustainable investing.”

Related Articles