Maya Beyhan
Senior Director, ESG Specialist, Index Investment Strategy, S&P Dow Jones Indices
Follow the ESG Leaders
The S&P 500® ESG Leaders Index is constructed using securities from the S&P 500 ESG Index that meet stricter sustainability criteria, while maintaining similar overall industry group weights as the S&P 500.1 The S&P 500 ESG Leaders Index takes its underlying index up a notch by applying additional exclusionary screenings based on business activities such…
- Categories ESG
- Tags core ESG, ESG, IIS, Maya Beyhan, S&P 500 ESG Index, S&P 500 ESG Leaders Index, sustainability, US FA
- Categories
- ESG
Cutting Carbon without Changing Course: Net Zero Fixed Income Indices
S&P DJI recently expanded its range of S&P PACT™ Indices (S&P Paris-Aligned & Climate Transition Indices) to go beyond equity to now cover fixed income. Within these indices, the differences between the two asset classes in terms of the balance between cost (tracking error) and reward (sustainability profile) are material and highly thought-provoking. As shown…
The Best of Both Worlds: Sustainability in Sectors
Sector-based approaches have historically shown they can be valuable for diversification, among other investor goals, but, until now, sustainability-inclined investors have been presented with limited options. With the recent creation of the S&P ESG Enhanced Sector Indices and the subsequent licensing of the Information Technology, Energy, Financials, and Health Care indices for a select range…
SPIVA Japan Scorecard 2022: Active Underperformance Despite an Abundance of Opportunities
The inaugural S&P Indices versus Active (SPIVA®) U.S. Scorecard was published in 2002, and has since been extended to Australia, Canada, Europe, India, Japan, Latin America, South Africa and the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), allowing investors to experience the active versus passive debate on a global scale. The SPIVA Japan Scorecard measures the…
The Key to the S&P 500 ESG Index’s Outperformance: Avoiding the “Worst”
Now approaching its fourth anniversary since launch, the S&P 500® ESG Index seeks to reflect many of the attributes of the S&P 500 itself, while providing an improved sustainability profile as a result of an updated ESG score.1 With live performance data covering an extraordinary period—including two bear markets on either side of a growth…
S&P 500 Decarbonization: Drawing the Path to Net Zero
As reported in S&P DJI’s Climate and ESG Index Dashboard, climate indices can include both absolute and benchmark-relative goals. Absolute goals could include, for example, a certain target level of weighted average emissions among index constituents, while a relative goal might insist on an improvement in comparison to a benchmark such as the S&P 500®….
Schrödinger’s Carbon: Intensity and Paris Alignment
In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger’s Cat refers to the paradoxical consequences of a thought experiment: can a cat be simultaneously dead and alive? A similarly counterintuitive phenomenon can be found in the context of climate-based analysis: whereby an index may boast a relatively low carbon intensity and yet, perhaps surprisingly, not be judged as aligned with…
- Categories ESG, Thematics
- Tags carbon intensity, climate, decarbonization, ESG, Fossil Fuel, IIS, institutional investor, Maya Beyhan, Net Zero, Paris Agreement, Paris-aligned Benchmark, S&P 500 ESG Index, S&P 500 Fossil Fuel Free Index, S&P Global Trucost Paris-Alignment dataset, sectors, Trucost, US FA
Connecting Climate Goals with Relative Index Returns
The widespread global adoption of ESG and climate indices has created an accompanying need for better understanding regarding the performance impact of the various choices made in their design. As introduced in S&P DJI’s new Climate & ESG Index Dashboard, a Brinson-like “carbon attribution” teases out one particularly important source of returns. Untangling the exact…