Investorer vil sandsynligvis bruge 1 milliard dollars på ESG-data inden 2021, idet investering i ESG-data øges med ca. 20% om året, ifølge en rapport fra Opimas LLC.
Udgifter til ESG-data beløb sig til 619 millioner dollars i 2019, op fra 505 millioner dollars i 2018, sagde Opimas i en rapport, der blev offentliggjort i denne uge.
Udgifter til ESG-indekser vil sandsynligvis stige med en årlig sats på 35% ifølge Opimas. Væksten i ESG-dataudgifter er hovedsageligt til gavn for virksomheder som MSCI Inc., Sustainalytics, Vigeo Eiris og Arabesque. Bloomberg LP, udgiveren af Bloomberg News, sælger også ESG-data.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
As the bid to invest responsibly has become mainstream over the past few years, the demand for environmental, social and governance (ESG) data has skyrocketed. While originally limited to scores and ratings assessing the extra-financial performance of companies, ESG data now cover a wide variety of products and services used at most financial institutions and, to a lesser extent, at corporates. The market development is notably due to an increased demand from investors and the development of new types of non-financial data for different use cases. Above all, the development of the ESG data market has been made possible by the enhancement of ESG data quality and the continual improvement of related methodologies by data providers.
ESG Data: a Work in Progress
The growth of the ESG data market has been supported by regulatory progress, notably in Europe where ESG considerations are now sanctioned as part of institutional investors‘ fiduciary duty. Originally, ESG data were used for compliance and marketing purposes, allowing financial institutions to “tick the box”, and the flagship product offered by ESG data providers was ESG ratings, whose appeal were their usability and affordability. But as ESG integration advances among asset managers and asset owners, the range of ESG data products and services is evolving together with the number of use cases at institutions. For instance, asset managers use ESG data all along the investment decision process, including for portfolio selection, index construction, risk management, voting practices, and engagement with issuers, while corporates leverage ESG data to benchmark against peers or to understand where sources of sustainability risk and opportunities lie.
Different use cases will necessitate different levels of detail and data granularity. While ESG ratings are still very useful as a warning product, engagement with corporates requires delving into the details of the different metrics of the issuer. As a result, ESG data providers have developed a full gamut of ESG products ranging from raw data to ESG aggregated scores by way of analytical tools, such as climate change scenarios or carbon emission footprints.
Consequently, data vendors have contributed to an overall improvement of ESG data quality that was long considered the main barrier to greater ESG adoption and integration.
These vendors have multiplied their data sources, thanks largely to the use of technology (e.g., artificial intelligence, web scraping, natural language processing, etc.), the enlargement of their coverage areas (number of companies covered, sectors, regions, asset classes, etc.) and the improvement of their methodology and its transparency.
Technologies, however, will not be the panacea: some data will always be missing, and some corporate reporting will remain based on proxies and estimates. The only guarantee for their reliability will be the quality of the methodology developed by data providers.
A Thriving Market
The ESG data market is flourishing around the globe, bolstered by the increasing demand for ESG data and the responsive offerings developed by a growing number of providers.
In total, Opimas estimates the ESG data market was US$617 million in 2019. With an expected annual growth rate of 20% for ESG data and 35% for ESG indices, the market could approach US$1 billion by 2021.
FIGURE 1. ESG DATA MARKET SIZE
http://www.opimas.com/research/547/detail/
