ESG Consulting history

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) was established in 1997 to create an accountability framework for companies to display to their stakeholders their responsible environmental business practices.

RepRisk, started in 1998, screens news sources to provide reporting for more than 140,000 private and public companies around the world spanning 34 sectors.

2000– The United National Global Compact is launched.

2004- Through the Global Compact, the report “Who Cares Wins– Connecting Financial Markets to a Changing World” was published in 2004 and provided guidelines for companies to incorporate ESG into their operations.

ESG issues were first mentioned in the 2006 United Nation’s Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) report consisting of the Freshfield Report and “Who Cares Wins.” ESG criteria was, for the first time, required to be incorporated in the financial evaluations of companies.

Sustainalytics, created in 2008, is the fusion of DSR from the Netherlands, Scores from Germany, and AIS from Spain.

2011- The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) is launched to standardize sustainability accounting and measurements across 77 industries.

2015- At the United Nations Framework Convention, the Paris Agreement is brought to life, and at the United Nations General Assembly the Sustainable Development Goals were created.

During the 2017 proxy season, State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) voted against the re-election of directors at 400 companies that SSGA said failed to make any significant effort to appoint women to their all-male boards.

The last major rating agency, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) Environmental and Social QualityScore, is the newest of the four having launched in February of 2018.

They calculated a variety of performance metrics valuation including price performance and volatility measures over the last five years evaluated as of the end of 2019.

2020- There’s no doubt that the past year has accelerated the need for CSR and ESG. The COVID-19 pandemic brought economic disparities to the forefront and highlight gaps in healthcare systems and access across the world.