Sustainability Excellence ESG

Leading Benchmarking and ESG Analysis for Responsible Investments

As a signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), Sustainability Excellence has made the formal commitment to drive the responsible investment movement forward in the Arab world by providing a wide range of customised products and services that support investors, asset managers, asset owners, and stock exchanges to integrate sustainability issues in their core strategies and make better informed investment decisions.

Sustainability Excellence ESG Research division provides ratings, and analysis of companies’ risks and opportunities that emerge from environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Through an in-depth analysis of material issues for the sector, our analysis reveals hidden risks or opportunities that may not be captured by mainstream financial analyses.

Products Overview

Best in Class ESG Company Ratings Reports

ESG Company Rating reports provide detailed performance insights, scores, and ratings on material aspects of a company’s ESG performance. To facilitate the best-in-class screening and integration process, ESG scores, ratings, and percentiles rankings can be easily exported into platforms including Bloomberg, FactSet, and Thomson Reuters using ISIN codes matching.

Alerts

Following a negative corporate event, ESG scores and rating are subject to a review for potential downgrade depending on the severity of the allegation and its potential impact on the financial viability of the firm.

UN Global Compact Compliance Screening

The UN Global Compact Compliance screening reinforces the ESG rating process by adding another safety layer that ensures the identification of companies monitored for potential violations and therefore enhances the credibility of the overall ESG integration process.

Global Sanctions Screening

The Global Sanctions screening is a custom-made report listing compliant and non-compliant companies, as well as a ‘watch list’ of the companies being monitored for potential breaches of international conventions or participation in explicit or implicit violation of human rights. For example, we identify any companies that are directly linked to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. This allows investors who support the protection of Palestine’s rights to make investment decisions aligned with their principles, minimizing their exposure to such companies.

Case Studies

ESG materiality case studies depict tangible examples of how MENA companies are integrating material ESG factors in their core business activities to capture new business opportunities, reduce costs, hedge risks, and enhance operational efficiency; providing a superior value for investors.

Sector and Thematic Studies

Sector and thematic studies provide an analytical overview on regional sustainability trends and regulations within the MENA region leveraging insights on regional, and sectorial risks that can affect corporate performance and therefore providing insights for investors on regional and sector allocation strategy.

Key Advantages

A Dedicated ESG Research Team: A diversified team of native Arabic speaking ESG research analysts capturing and assessing ESG information. Large amounts of crucial data – e.g. Corporate Governance information - is only available in Arabic in Saudi Arabia.

Regional Presence/Focus: Sustainability Excellence has three regional offices incorporated in UAE, Qatar, and Jordan. Sustainability Excellence ESG dicision is the only rating agency that solely covers companies within the MENA region.

IT Infrastructure: A proprietary IT platform supporting the analysts’ work in extracting and assessing the information based on strict methodology standards.

Quality Control: Sustainability Excellence ESG division relies on standardized and quality controlled data, verified by a rigorous quality management process.

Rigorous Process - ESG data is collected and analysed using numerous corporate and stakeholder sources:

- Public corporate documentation (e.g. annual reports, governance reports, CSR reports, corporate websites).

- Reports and companies’ announcements via Stock Exchanges website.

- Direct exchange with companies.

- Stakeholders information (ex: reliable media sources and platforms).

Solid and Comprehensive ESG Methodology:

- Conceptual framework based on internationally recognized standards and with a focus on regional challenges in the MENA region.

- Alignment with the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) ESG requirements.

- 9 Sustainability ESG Dimensions and 43 criteria, and more than 180 KPIs analysed and customized by sector.

- Captures ESG related risks and opportunities for each sector analysed.

- Defines materiality from an investor perspective: The weights for each criteria within each sector are determined by analysing stakeholders’ exposure to the ESG issues and its impact in terms of risks and opportunities.

- Daily monitoring and alert system to identify companies exposed to ESG related allegations and controversies.

ESG Riscum Assessment (ERA) methodology

ESG Riscum Assessment (ERA) methodology has been developed by Sustainability Excellence in order to support investors capture ESG risk and opportunities and integrate these factors into portfolio construction and management process. Our methodology is conceptually sound as it is based on stringent international standards and regional strategic roadmaps and is aligned with the UN PRI.

Conceptual Framework

Our team of native Arabic speaking research analysts assess ESG data points across 9 Sustainability Dimensions and 43 ESG issues with more than 180 data points for companies in the Arab world, analysing the level of integration of ESG issues at the company’s core business activities and assessing the company’s exposure to tail risk events or opportunities.