When the S&P 500 ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Index underwent its annual rebalance after markets closed on April 30, 2019, several notable companies were removed, including Wells Fargo, Oracle, and IBM. However, the largest component to be dropped was Facebook. A day before its exclusion, Facebook held a weight of 2.5% in the S&P Read more […]
Human capital, physical capital, and technology have been widely recognized as a fundamental source of economic growth.[1] Dating back to the 1960s and early 1970s, when we saw a rapid increase in educated workers, facilities, and technological catch-up, Japan’s “economic miracle” emerged along with impressive GDP and per capita output growth.[2] Nowadays, these factors are Read more […]
Today, S&P Dow Jones Indices and RobecoSAM announced the results of the annual rebalancing of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI). The DJSI World will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2019, making it one of the longest-running sustainability benchmarks in the world. Even after nearly 20 years, the index has lost none of its Read more […]
Year-to-date, Facebook (FB) was down 7.13% as of April 12, 2018, compared to its 53% total return in 2017. What started as a data breach issue has expanded to encompass management structure, procedures, and safeguard concerns—issues that are all related to corporate governance. Market participants have a tendency to only care about corporate governance when Read more […]
There is increasing evidence of the link between ESG and financial outperformance as better data quality, standardized data, longer data history, and heightened interest in assessing the materiality of ESG drives continued research. However, there is already substantial empirical evidence to suggest that the “G” aspect of ESG ultimately yields better corporate returns. Governance data, Read more […]
On Sept. 7, 2017, RobecoSAM and S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) announced the results of the annual rebalancing of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI). This year, a record of 942 companies (up 9 %) from around the world that had participated in RobecoSAM’s annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) eagerly waited to learn whether Read more […]
When I was a teenager growing up in Basel, I witnessed first-hand one of the events that put sustainability thinking on the agendas of the corporate landscape. On November 1, 1986, I was woken up by loud sirens. A disastrous fire had broken out at a chemical plant warehouse. Over 1,000 tons of agrochemical product Read more […]
On September 7, the review of the renowned Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) series will be announced. Now in its 19th year, the index family continues to be the gold standard of large cap ESG performance, and serves as an effective engagement platform for investors who want to encourage companies to improve their corporate sustainability Read more […]
The annual rebalancing of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI), the most famous benchmark for corporate sustainability in the world, took place on September 8th 2016. With nearly 2,000 companies analyzed currently and another nearly 2,000 to be analyzed in RobecoSAM’s 2016 Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA), it is clear that sustainability is no longer something Read more […]
Historically, ESG indices have not attracted asset volumes comparable to smart beta index strategies. This could be attributed to the fact that market participants and academics alike have struggled to link ESG-based strategies with financial performance. As researchers shift their focus from how to study ESG to how to integrate ESG data into products and Read more […]
