Institutional Investors Can Now Access High Quality Data and Scores for an Additional 3,200 Companies Across 18 Industries

ROCKVILLE, M.D. (May 17, 2018) – Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), a leading provider of governance and responsible investment solutions to the global financial community, today announced a significant coverage expansion for Environmental & Social QualityScore, a component of ISS’ industry leading corporate profiling and scoring solution for institutional investors.

E&S QualityScore represents a data driven approach to measuring the quality of corporate disclosures on environmental and social issues, including on sustainability governance, and to identify key disclosure omissions. Expectations regarding disclosure practices are defined by industry groupings, based on the specific environmental and social risks identified in industry and multi-stakeholder initiatives, and reflected in authoritative standards and recommendations from groups such as the Global Reporting Initiative, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.

Today’s announced expansion enhances global coverage with 3,200 additional companies across 18 additional industries, bringing total coverage to 4,700 companies across all 24 four-digit GICS industry groups.

“We are extremely pleased to deliver on our commitment to provide coverage that is both broad and deep, reflecting our clients’ growing portfolios and their need for reliable solutions to inform their efforts to identify and mitigate risks and uncover investment opportunities,” said Marija Kramer, Head of ISS-Ethix, the responsible investment arm of Institutional Shareholder Services.

Underpinning E&S QualityScore are more than 380 unique environmental and social factors under analysis of which at least 240 apply to each industry group. Like its governance counterpart, E&S QualityScore provides a score for each company in its coverage universe that measures the company’s level of environmental and social governance disclosure risk, both overall and within eight broad categories.  Broad topical areas under the E&S QualityScore methodology for environmental disclosures include: Management of Environmental Risks and Opportunities; Carbon and Climate; Natural Resources; and Waste and Toxicity. Meanwhile, Human Rights; Labor, Health, and Safety; Stakeholder and Society; and Product Safety, Quality, and Brand comprise topical areas for social-related disclosures.

To learn more about E&S QualityScore, download a set of FAQs here and a companion Key Issues document here.

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