More than seven out of ten (71%) executives working for buy-side financial services firms across the UK, US and Asia say their organisation uses more than five ESG data sources.
The average number of sources used by these businesses is 9.3, with the US using the most (9.7) and Asia with the least at 8.9.
These findings are among the highlights of new research commissioned by Alveo, a provider of cloud-based market data management services, polling executives working for buy-side financial services firms in the UK, US and Asia. In terms of ESG data set types, organisations across all three regions are using multiple types, but are utilising ESG ratings provided by third parties most. In all, just under three-quarters (74%) of respondents said that their organisations were using these ratings.
The most common response in all three regions is to have between six-10 ESG data sources, with corporate disclosures being the least common data source cited. External ratings is the most common, with far more use of sentiment data in the US when compared to the UK or Asia.
Some 57% of firms overall are currently using third party expert opinions on factual information such as carbon emissions, but Asia respondents have more frequently centralised ESG data management with 68% of respondents in Asia stating there is a dedicated and separate ESG team in place that owns this data, compared to 52% in the US and 46% in the UK.
What is clear is that firms need to cast a wide net to get the ESG data they require including external ratings, expert opinions and sentiment data to supplement corporate disclosures.
