In RobecoSAM’s own words, a record-breaking number of companies took part in this year’s assessment. In total, over 2 million data points were collected to assess 2,473 companies. Selection criteria for inclusion in the Yearbook become more rigorous each year, and only the top 15% of the companies within each industry are selected for inclusion. In total, RobecoSAM awarded 77 RobecoSAM Gold Class medals, 82 RobecoSAM Silver Class medals and 105 RobecoSAM Bronze Class medals to the evaluated companies.

Investing for long-term value creation: more than DJSI selection

In his first foreword as RobecoSAM’s CEO, Aris Prepoudis underlines the key theme that emerged among institutional investors in recent years: the need to shift away from a short-term mindset, and to reorient corporate and investment strategies towards generating long-term value. At RobecoSAM, this resulted in the development of the Long-Term Value Creation Global Index, built using a selection of criteria from the CSA that best capture a company’s quality of management and potential to create long-term value.

Beyond the selection of Dow Jones Sustainability Index constituents, RobecoSAM is finding other ways to apply CSA data by identifying, selecting and combining subsets of sustainability data to develop customized solutions that address its clients’ specific sustainability or impact objectives.

Furthermore, the Yearbook includes an overview of some of the preliminary findings of the newly introduced Impact Measurement & Valuation criterion, plus an interview with  AkzoNobel’s Director of Sustainability André Veneman to learn more about his company’s approach to impact valuation. Finally, RobecoSAM sheds light on the redeveloped Human Rights criterion and examines where the assessment identified leadership in this area.

The complete RobecoSAM Sustainability Yearbook 2017 can be found at yearbook.robecosam.com.

Eager to be in the Sustainability Yearbook 2018?

At Finch & Beak, we congratulate our customers that made it into the Yearbook, among which DSM, Telenet and Liberty Global that are listed in the Gold Class of their respective industries. Other Gold Class members include Philips, Unilever, Inditex, Nestle, and METRO AG.

Eligible companies looking to be included or improve their position in the Yearbook next year (or the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, which is selected based on the same data) are advised to start preparing for the release of the new RobecoSAM Company Sustainability Assessment.  Accelerate your approach by joining one of our dedicated DJSI Trainings hosted in collaboration with RobecoSAM. Or, if you are looking for personal guidance in the assessment process, please contact Nikkie Vinke, senior consultant, at nikkie@finchandbeak.com or call +31 6 28 02 18 80.

Image source: FaceMePLS, Flickr