MSCI Gives Nasdaq an ESG Rating of AA

Nasdaq's MSCI ESG Rating for 2022 went from BBB to AA. The company is a "Leader" because of how well it handles ESG risks and opportunities. MSCI placed Nasdaq 99th globally and in its home market. This demonstrates the company's ethical and anti-corruption practises.

Nasdaq's ESG dedications and disclosure improvements have been acknowledged by a ratings increase from BBB to AA.

The latest MSCI ESG Ratings for 2022 have been released, and Nasdaq, Inc. has gone from a BBB rating to an AA. Because of its impressive handling of its most consequential environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities, the company has been placed in the "Leaders" category of the yearly ratings.

The global investment community relies on MSCI, a provider of critical decision support tools and services, to evaluate over 8,500 companies on their exposure to industry-specific and financially material ESG risks and their ability to manage those risks in comparison to their peers using a "AAA" to "CCC" ratings scale. With the help of MSCI's ESG ratings reports, institutional investors may assess the potential risks and rewards associated with a company's environmental, social, and governance practises.

ESG Ratings at MSCI: A Look Back

Nasdaq's four-tier MSCI rating jumped from B to AA in 2018 due to the exchange's proactive engagement with the ratings agency and the changes it made to its ESG programmes, policies, and disclosure in 2017.

According to Nina Eisenman, Vice President and Head of Corporate ESG Strategy at Nasdaq, "moving the needle with MSCI is one of the biggest tasks for corporate ESG." Achieving a two-tier improvement from BBB to AA is a major feat and a tribute to the hard work of many individuals across Nasdaq. The AA rating honours not only the thoroughness of Nasdaq's ESG reports, but also the importance of the company's role as a leader in the ESG space.

Nasdaq has been analysing its ESG policies, programmes, and public disclosures since 2017. Since then, the corporation has dramatically enhanced its ESG reporting in a variety of key areas.

ESG Ratings: A Benchmark For Performance

Nasdaq's investor relations and corporate ESG strategy and reporting teams performed a gap analysis of the company's MSCI score to identify areas of improvement, resulting in a recent, two-tier ratings climb in under two years. In order to strategically grow ESG efforts and improve ESG disclosures in its 2021 Sustainability Report and other documents, the ESG team teamed up with subject matter experts from across the organisation. The MSCI team's familiarity with Nasdaq's established and modernised methods and fundamentals was also greatly enhanced by the Nasdaq team's efforts to involve them more closely in the exchange's operations.

"During our gap analysis, we observed that while our whistleblower policy provided best-in-class safeguards for employees, we had an opportunity to define it in greater detail to guarantee the MSCI analysts understood it better," Eisenman said. Increased transparency thanks to more detailed descriptions in our Code of Ethics and other public publications earned us "best practise" recognition in the area of business ethics.

"within the top scoring range relative to global peers, reflecting governance processes that appear to be generally well aligned with investor interests,"

as MSCI puts it, is where Nasdaq now stands in their latest ESG ratings report. Moreover, Nasdaq was ranked 99th in both the Global and Home Market Percentile Rank by MSCI, a testament to the company's exemplary business ethics and anti-corruption practises.

Nasdaq places a premium on human resource management and employee happiness. Integrating technologies to automate communication and mission-critical business procedures requires a competent personnel. The MSCI ESG Ratings study praised Nasdaq for its "sector-leading" employee stock purchase plan and the company's "best-in-class" structured talent pipeline development strategy (ESPP).

Explore the link for additional details about Nasdaq's eco-friendly initiatives.

Source: nasdaq news