Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are relevant to all company types, with market opportunity and risk continuing to intensify. Our leaders from the combined organization of S&P Global and IHS Markit discuss how we are expanding perspectives on ESG and Sustainability. See how our robust suite of in-depth data, analytics, and expert advisors can guide you on your ESG journey to a sustainable future in this Q&A blog.
When you think about the future of ESG — how can we help clients?
Sarah Cottle — Research, Advisory & Specialty Solutions:
Environmental, social and governance issues have become extremely important for all our clients. Banks, investment managers, asset owners, and insurers are all concerned about exposure to risks in their loan books and investment portfolios.
At the same time, companies recognize the need to be more transparent about their ESG strategies to meet investor and customer demands. Our climate data and insights are unparalleled, and they are helping financial institutions and companies accelerate their journeys to net zero as they quantify carbon baselines in their company operations.
Kevin Bourne — Sustainable Finance:
The challenge for our customers is that the demands being made of them by regulators and investors are accelerating and is a new area where laws are changing quickly. Companies are now in many jurisdictions having to supply detailed data on their suppliers and their suppliers' impact on the environment. To answer those questions to regulators and investors, they need an entirely new set of tools and capabilities.
How will we partner with clients in this space to drive innovation?
Kevin Bourne — Sustainable Finance:
Partnership is at the core of all commercial relationships. It's a foundation stone that will persist over time. And essential intelligence is the fuel that enables our partnerships with customers. Embedding value into that relationship takes time, technical competence, and trust between the client and us.
Sarah Cottle — Research, Advisory & Specialty Solutions:
Our relationships with our customers are critical. Not only do we serve our customers with essential intelligence, but we partner with them to innovate and ensure that the products that we deliver to the marketplace meet our customer’s needs.
How do you think we are expanding perspectives across our new combined company?
Sarah Cottle — Research, Advisory & Specialty Solutions:
As we move into the future, our customers will have increasing demands on them in the ESG space, and our combined company will help address those challenges. The combination of assets across both organizations is very powerful and will assist our customers in tracking their journeys toward net-zero.
Kevin Bourne — Sustainable Finance:
The merger between IHS Markit and S&P Global is significant for our customers. We will bring together different datasets and capabilities that enable us to take products to the market that have never been seen before.