A complete ESG evaluation system includes information disclosure and evaluation. As mentioned above, ESG thought originated from western religious investment and gradually developed into responsible investment. Although ESG investment has developed rapidly in recent years, it still lacks a unified disclosure and evaluation system. At that time, the mainstream information disclosure framework and disclosure standards in the market included the following five standards: GRI, SASB, ISO26000, CDP and IIRC.
I. GRI standards
At present, the GRI standard is the most widely used in the world, which is more common in European enterprises. American companies generally use SASB standard for general disclosure and TCFD standard for supplementary disclosure of climate-related issues.
Second, ISO26000.
O26000 is a social responsibility guideline standard numbered 26000 formulated by the International Organization for Standardization. O26000 aims to provide guidance for all enterprises, covering seven core issues, namely, organizational governance, human rights, labor practice, environment, fair operating hours, consumer issues, social participation and development, including 37 issues and 2 17 detailed indicators. Because the index is too detailed, it is not suitable for ordinary small and medium-sized enterprises, nor for investment guidance of PE enterprises, so this paper does not study and recommend it.
Three. SASB standard
SASB is a sustainable accounting standard, which adopts industry classification and sets disclosure standards for environmental, social and governance issues related to different industries. From the point of view of pertinence, SASB is more accurate, and its destination is to help enterprises improve the efficiency of decision-making and implementation through non-financial information.
The standard of SASB includes six elements: standard application guide, industry description, sustainable development theme, sustainable development accounting standard, technical specification and activity measurement standard.
The SASB sustainable development evaluation index includes five dimensions and 27 themes:
Judging from SASB's coverage of secondary and tertiary directories, it is in line with the current mainstream rating agencies' system, and MSCI ESG's rating is basically carried out according to this framework.
Four. CDP standard
The carbon emission information disclosure project (CDP) pays more attention to the information disclosure system related to climate, water and forest. CDP is highly correlated with the United Nations sustainable development goals and TCFD indicators. With the increasing concern about global climate change, some domestic and foreign enterprises voluntarily publish the results of CDP questionnaire survey. State-owned enterprises, including Huatai Securities, continue to participate in CDP questionnaire survey and publish their evaluation results in ESG report.
? Relatively speaking, CDP disclosure framework is more suitable for industrial enterprises, but not completely suitable for asset management industry. CDP framework focuses more on climate-related emission data, decomposition and risk analysis. Like TCFD support institutions, participation in CDP questionnaire survey is also one of its plus points.
Judging from the development speed, the future TCFD framework may gradually replace the CDP disclosure framework.
Verb (abbreviation of verb) IIRC standard newspaper
IIRC standard is the standard of International Comprehensive Reporting Committee. Aiming at ESG problem, IIRC mine construction gives broad indicators, and gives specific indicators and report format. Because of the great difference in individual awareness of different institutions, it is impossible to strike a balance between flexibility and regulation, so only guiding opinions are given. Specifically, it includes: corporate governance structure, strategy formulation process, mechanism of risk management and credit management, implementation process and supervision of strategy, use and influence of capital, compliance of laws and regulations, and innovation promotion.
? To sum up, the current mainstream disclosure framework in the market is the GRI standard, which is also the standard adopted by most enterprises of HKEx. At the same time, SASB may gradually become one of the important disclosure frameworks, because it is more in line with the index setting of the current mainstream evaluation agencies. For the institutions participating in MSCI ESG rating, it is necessary to pay close attention to the disclosure framework of SASB, carefully compare the rating reports given by rating agencies, carefully study their index weights and disclosure standards, and do a good job in information disclosure in combination with the actual situation of the company in order to achieve the best evaluation standards and enhance the ESG rating of the company.