> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://complete-docs-x17s80.allmind.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# ESG
> A company's full MSCI ESG profile inside the Data Viewer — the AAA–CCC rating and 0–10 scores, pillar/theme/key-issue breakdowns, score history, peer percentiles, governance and climate detail, and a reader for the company's own sustainability reports.
ESG is the sustainability-and-governance profile for a single company inside the Equities (Data Viewer)
workspace, powered by **MSCI ESG**. It shows the company's overall MSCI ESG letter rating (AAA–CCC) and
its 0–10 ESG score, then breaks performance down into the three pillars (Environmental, Social,
Governance), ten themes and roughly 35 key issues — explaining each score as a function of how exposed the
company is to a risk and how well it manages it. From there it tracks the rating and scores over time,
ranks the company against global and home-market peers, drills into board, committee, ownership and pay
detail, surfaces governance red flags and deductions, details climate and environmental themes, and gives
you a searchable library of the company's published ESG/sustainability reports you can read on screen.
*Find it under **Equities → ESG** for any company that MSCI ESG covers.* Users also call it "ESG ratings,"
the "Sustainability tab," the "MSCI ESG profile," or "ESG risk."
## What it is
ESG is where you judge a company's **non-financial** risk and quality — sustainability and governance —
rather than what it earns or what it is worth. It loads the latest MSCI ESG snapshot for the company you
have open and organizes everything into nine inner tabs you move between from the top of the page:
* **Summary** — the headline rating, the 0–10 ESG score, the three pillar scores, and the most material
key issues at a glance.
* **Scoring Profile** — how the score is built from pillar weights, themes and key-issue exposure vs.
management.
* **Score Evolution** — the rating and scores over time as line and bar charts plus a history table.
* **Factors Detail** — a searchable master table of every underlying MSCI metric for the snapshot.
* **Peer Analysis** — global and home-market percentiles, a governance quartile, and comparison against a
neutral benchmark and the rating scale.
* **Governance** — board, committees, ownership and control, pay, and per-category governance percentiles.
* **Controversies** — governance risk flags, behavior/ethics scores and the point deductions applied.
* **Climate** — the four environmental themes and their key-issue exposure and management scores.
* **ESG Documents** — the company's own sustainability reports, searchable and readable on screen.
A shared **"As of" date selector** lets you view any available monthly snapshot, and an **Add to AI Chat**
action hands the current snapshot to the AI assistant on any tab.
## When to use it
Reach for ESG whenever the question is about sustainability or governance risk and quality:
* **Screen a holding for ESG-mandate compliance** — does its rating and pillar profile clear your screen?
* **Understand *why* a company carries a given MSCI rating** — which key issues, exposures and management
gaps actually drive it.
* **Compare a company's ESG standing to peers** — globally and against its home market.
* **Check governance red flags** — board independence, state ownership, golden shares, stock-pyramid
control, external management, clawbacks.
* **See whether ESG performance is improving or deteriorating** over time.
* **Pull a company's own sustainability disclosures** to read, or to feed to the AI assistant.
### When to use something else instead
| If you want… | Go to |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Financial analysis** — revenue, margins, valuation, statements | [Financials & Ratios](/data-viewer/financials) |
| **Relative valuation** across a curated peer set | [Comps](/data-viewer/comps) |
| **Forward consensus and analyst forecasts** | [Estimates](/data-viewer/estimates) |
| **Raw price and return behavior, microstructure, technicals** | [Price Analysis](/data-viewer/price-analysis) |
| **Other non-financial context** — supplier/customer relationships, filings | [Supply Chain](/data-viewer/supply-chain), [Documents](/data-viewer/documents) |
| The **same ESG questions answered across many companies at once** | Grids |
| A **formatted written deliverable** built on the ESG read | Reports |
ESG covers sustainability and governance quality only. It does **not** contain valuation, earnings
estimates, or trading data, and its climate data is MSCI key-issue exposure and management scores — **not**
absolute emissions tonnage, carbon intensity, or implied-temperature-rise figures.
## How to use it
Open a company in the Equities (Data Viewer) workspace and select the **ESG** tab. It loads the latest
MSCI ESG snapshot automatically. If MSCI does not cover the ticker, the tab shows that no ESG data is
available for it.
Read the **Summary** for the headline MSCI rating, the 0–10 ESG score, the three pillar scores, and the
most material key issues.
Use the **"As of"** date selector (top right) to switch between monthly historical snapshots.
Pick the tab that matches your question — **Summary, Scoring Profile, Score Evolution, Factors Detail,
Peer Analysis, Governance, Controversies, Climate,** or **ESG Documents**.
In **Factors Detail**, filter by pillar, theme or metric type, or search by name, to find any
individual MSCI factor for the selected snapshot.
Press **Add to AI Chat** at any time to push the current ESG snapshot into the AI assistant for
questions or report drafting.
In **ESG Documents**, search and open the company's sustainability reports in an on-screen reader, then
**Ask AI about this document** or open it on its own.
## What you get
Nine inner tabs, each answering a different ESG question for the selected snapshot.
### Summary
An executive ESG overview. The header shows the issuer name and ticker, the assigned **MSCI ESG Rating
Industry** (peer group), country of domicile, the current **MSCI ESG Rating** (large and color-coded
AAA–CCC), and the prior rating when it changed. A set of cards gives the **ESG Score**
(Weighted-Average Key Issue Score, /10), the **Industry-Adjusted** score (/10) and the **Environmental,
Social** and **Governance** pillar scores (each /10 with its percentage weight) on color-coded bars. A
**Key Issue Scores** table lists every assessed key issue sorted by weight — Key Issue, Pillar, Weight,
Score, Exposure, Mgmt and Contribution (score × weight) — and notes how many issues are *material*
(weight above zero) of the total assessed; non-material issues are dimmed. A **Theme Scores** table lists
the weighted themes with pillar, score and weight.
### Scoring Profile
How the score is built. Overview cards restate the ESG score, rating and each pillar (score + weight). A
**Weight Distribution** bar visualizes the pillar weights and the weighted pillar sum. Three per-pillar
cards list the weighted themes with score bars and separate out the themes that are **not material to the
industry** (zero weight). An **All Theme Scores** table adds each theme's contribution (score × weight). A
**Key Issue Exposure & Management Breakdown** table shows, per key issue, the Score, Exposure, Management
and Weight, plus a visual comparison of exposure (risk level) against management (risk mitigation) and the
gap between them — a positive gap is good, a negative gap needs attention. This tab makes the core MSCI
logic explicit: the score is a function of exposure and management.
### Score Evolution
The historical trend. A line chart plots the **ESG Score over time** (0–10) with a **Show/Hide pillars**
toggle that overlays the Environmental, Social and Governance lines; a stats line shows the average, the
min–max range and the number of periods, and a methodology note explains that the ESG Score is the
Weighted-Average Key Issue Score while the pillar scores are independent and do not sum to it.
Period-over-period change cards show the current value and the delta for the ESG Score and each pillar, a
grouped bar chart shows the pillar scores over time, and a **Historical Records** table lists up to the 12
most recent snapshots with Date, Rating, ESG Score and the three pillar scores.
### Factors Detail
The exhaustive, analyst-grade view. A filterable, searchable table of every MSCI field for the snapshot,
classified by **Pillar, Theme, Metric, Type** and **Value**. Filter by pillar (All / Environmental /
Social / Governance / Other), by theme (a dynamic list), and by type (Score / Weight / Exposure /
Management / Percentile / Deduction / Detail), or free-text search across metric, theme and type. A stats
line shows how many factors are displayed of the total and the average score; score values are color-coded
and percentiles are normalized for display.
### Peer Analysis
Where the company ranks. An **MSCI ESG Rating Scale** (AAA–CCC) labels the tiers — **Leader** (AAA / AA /
A), **Average** (BBB / BB) and **Laggard** (B / CCC) — and highlights the current rating. Percentile cards
show the **Global Percentile** (vs. all companies), the **Home Market Percentile** (vs. local peers), the
**Governance Quartile** (Q1 best to Q4 worst) and the ESG score. A **Score Breakdown vs Benchmark**
compares the primary ESG score, the Weighted Key Issue score and the Industry-Adjusted score against a
neutral **5.0 benchmark** with deltas; a **Pillar Score Comparison** table does the same per pillar with a
marker bar; and a **Performance Summary** table restates the vs-global and vs-home-market percentiles, the
governance quartile and the ESG score. The headline global/home percentiles shown here are MSCI's
governance percentile ranks.
### Governance
A deep dive into governance structure. Summary cards show the Governance score, global and home-market
percentiles and the quartile. **Board Composition** covers board meetings held, average director tenure,
average independent-director tenure, re-election frequency, board independence %, inside directors %, and
directors over 70 %. A **Committees** table (Audit, Nomination, Pay) shows meetings held, whether the
committee exists, and its independence %. **Ownership & Control** flags State-Owned Enterprise, controlled
via stock pyramid, corporate parent, golden share, externally managed, plus country of incorporation and
legal form. **Compensation** shows maximum and median director fees, non-audit fees, and clawback type. A
**Comprehensive Percentile Rankings** table covers Overall Governance, Board, Pay, Ownership & Control,
Accounting, Business Ethics, Tax Transparency and Corporate Behavior — each with global and home-market
percentiles and a performance label (Excellent / Good / Fair / Needs Improvement). A **Governance Pillar
Deductions** table lists point deductions across those categories with a total.
### Controversies
A derived governance-risk view. Risk overview cards show the **Risk Score** (after deductions, 0–10),
**Total Deductions**, the count of **Active Flags** and an overall **Status** (Clear / Issues Detected). A
**Governance Pillar Deductions** table shows the per-category deduction and a Clear/Deducted status with a
total. A **Risk Flags Assessment** table evaluates structural red flags — State-Owned Enterprise,
controlled via stock pyramid, golden share and externally managed — each with a description, category and
severity (High / Medium / Low / Clear). A **Business Ethics
& Fraud Assessment** table shows Score / Management / Exposure for Business Ethics & Fraud, Anticompetitive
Practices, Corruption & Instability, Corporate Behavior and Tax Gap. A percentile-rankings table covers
Business Ethics, Tax Transparency, Corporate Behavior and Accounting (global + home), and an **Impact on
ESG Score** table reconciles the base governance score, the deductions applied and the adjusted risk
score. This tab is built from MSCI governance deductions and behavior/ethics scores — it is **not** a feed
of individual dated controversy news cases.
### Climate
Environmental-pillar detail across the four environmental themes. Summary cards show the Environmental
score, the pillar weight, and the Climate Change and Environmental Opportunities theme scores. An
**Environmental Themes Overview** table covers Climate Change, Natural Capital, Pollution & Waste and
Environmental Opportunities with score, weight and a bar. An **Environmental Factors Detail** table,
grouped by theme, lists each key issue with Score, Exposure and Management — Climate Change (Carbon
Emissions, Energy Efficiency, Product Carbon Footprint, Climate Change Vulnerability), Natural Capital
(Water Stress, Biodiversity & Land Use, Raw Material Sourcing), Pollution & Waste (Toxic Emissions &
Waste, Packaging Material & Waste, Electronic Waste) and Environmental Opportunities (Clean Tech, Green
Building, Renewable Energy, Financing Environmental Impact). An **Exposure vs Management Analysis** table
ranks factors by exposure and labels each Low Risk / Well Managed / Adequate / At Risk / Critical based on
the management-minus-exposure gap. Climate data here is expressed as MSCI 0–10 exposure and management
scores — not absolute emissions or temperature alignment.
### ESG Documents
The company's own disclosures. Its ESG/sustainability reports appear as cover cards (company logo, report
name, an "ESG Report" label and year), searchable by filename or year and sorted most-recent-year first.
Selecting a report opens it in an on-screen reader alongside the document list, which you can collapse to
give the report more room. From the reader you can **Ask AI about this document** (sends it to the AI
assistant) or open it on its own, and the view adjusts automatically when the AI chat is open.
### Key capabilities at a glance
| Capability | What it does |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **MSCI ESG letter rating** | Headline AAA / AA / A / BBB / BB / B / CCC, color-coded, with the prior rating, the trend, and the assigned MSCI ESG Rating Industry (peer group). |
| **ESG score (0–10)** | The Weighted-Average Key Issue Score as the primary metric, plus the Final Industry-Adjusted Score. |
| **Three-pillar scores** | Environmental, Social and Governance scores (0–10), each with its percentage weight in the model. |
| **Theme breakdown** | Ten themes — Climate Change, Natural Capital, Pollution & Waste, Environmental Opportunities, Human Capital, Product Liability, Social Opportunities, Stakeholder Opposition, Corporate Governance, Corporate Behavior — with score, weight and contribution. |
| **Key-issue scoring** | \~35 key issues, each scored on Score, Weight, Exposure (risk level) and Management (risk mitigation), with contribution and exposure-vs-management gap. |
| **Materiality view** | Separates issues and themes that are material to the industry (weight > 0) from non-material ones, so you see what actually drives the rating. |
| **Score history** | Monthly historical snapshots with trend line/bar charts and period-over-period change. |
| **Peer / percentile benchmarking** | Global and home-market percentile ranks, a governance quartile (Q1–Q4), and comparison against a 5.0 benchmark and the Leader/Average/Laggard scale. |
| **Governance deep dive** | Board composition, committee structure and independence, ownership-and-control flags, director/executive pay and clawbacks, and per-category governance percentiles. |
| **Risk flags & deductions** | Structural red flags (state ownership, stock pyramid, golden share, external management) plus the point deductions MSCI applies and the business-ethics/fraud/corruption/tax scores. |
| **Climate / environmental detail** | Environmental theme and key-issue exposure/management scores — carbon, energy, water, biodiversity, waste and clean-tech/renewable opportunities. |
| **ESG document library** | A searchable library of the company's own sustainability/ESG reports, readable on screen. |
| **Send ESG context to AI** | One-click push of the current snapshot — or a selected document — into the AI assistant. |
| **Snapshot date selector** | An "As of" control to view the data for any available monthly snapshot. |
## Data & sources
* **MSCI ESG** powers everything on the data tabs — the AAA–CCC ratings, the pillar/theme/key-issue
scores, the exposure and management scores, the weights, the percentile ranks, the governance structural
data, the deductions, and the MSCI ESG Rating Industry classification.
* **The company's own ESG / sustainability reports** are the documents shown and read in **ESG Documents**
— the company's published disclosures, presented with the company's logo on each report cover.
* Data is keyed by ticker and country.
## Tips & best practices
* **Read the Summary's materiality first.** The header notes how many key issues are material (weight > 0)
— those are what move the rating. Non-material issues are dimmed for a reason; do not over-weight them.
* **Use the exposure-vs-management gap to find real risk.** In Scoring Profile and Climate, a negative gap
(exposure higher than management) is where the company is exposed but not managing well — the issues
worth flagging in a memo.
* **Confirm a rating change in Score Evolution.** When the Summary shows a prior rating, open Score
Evolution to see whether it is a one-off or part of a multi-year trend.
* **Remember the ESG Score and pillar scores are different metrics.** The ESG Score is the
Weighted-Average Key Issue Score; the pillar scores are independent and do not add up to it.
* **Treat the headline peer percentiles as governance ranks.** The global/home percentiles on Peer
Analysis are MSCI's governance percentile ranks — the fuller per-pillar percentiles live on the
Governance tab.
* **Dig into Factors Detail for the exact number.** When you need a specific MSCI metric, filter by type
(Score / Exposure / Management / Percentile / Deduction) instead of scrolling the curated tabs.
* **Push the snapshot to the assistant for the narrative.** Add the snapshot to AI Chat and ask it to
explain the rating, draft the ESG paragraph of a memo, or compare exposure and management across pillars.
## Limits & things to know
* **Coverage is limited to issuers MSCI rates.** A company MSCI does not cover shows no ESG data on this
tab.
* **Snapshots are monthly**, dated to the first of the month.
* **Peer Analysis headline percentiles are governance-based.** The global/home percentiles and the
quartile there are MSCI's governance percentile ranks; broader per-pillar percentiles are fully exposed
only in the Governance tab.
* **Controversies is a derived risk view**, built from governance deductions, business-ethics/fraud/
corruption/tax scores and structural ownership and control flags — not a feed of individual dated
controversy news events or a standalone MSCI controversy case score.
* **Climate metrics are 0–10 exposure and management scores.** There are no absolute emissions tonnage,
carbon-intensity or implied-temperature-rise figures on this surface.
* **Near-zero anomalous scores are treated as missing** and shown as a dash rather than as misleading
values; non-material (zero-weight) items also show a dash.
* **Treat exact fee amounts as approximate.** Director and audit fees are auto-scaled when MSCI reports
them in thousands.
* **The "As of" selector and Add to AI Chat need a loaded record** and are disabled when no data is
available; ESG Documents depends on the company having published reports on file.
* **The ESG tables are built for on-screen analysis**, and there is no watchlist add, bookmark or
note-taking here — but a document can be opened on its own and the whole snapshot can be sent to the AI
assistant.
### Availability
No special entitlement is required beyond having the company open in the Data Viewer. What you see depends
on **MSCI ESG coverage** for that issuer — if MSCI has no record for the ticker, the tab states that no
ESG data is available — and **ESG Documents** depends on the company having published reports on file.
## Works with other features
ESG sits inside the Equities (Data Viewer) workspace, a per-company research surface that feeds the rest of
the platform.
**Add to AI Chat** pushes the current snapshot's ESG data — ratings, the overall and pillar scores, and
carbon/climate fields, labeled with the active inner tab — into the assistant for explanation, Q\&A or
report drafting.
**ESG Documents** opens the company's sustainability reports in an on-screen reader, with **Ask AI
about this document** and the option to open a report on its own.
The **“As of”** date control is shared across the inner tabs, so changing the snapshot date updates
most views at once — though Score Evolution always shows the full history regardless of the selected
date, and ESG Documents are listed by company.
Pivot from non-financial risk to the financials on the same name —
[Financials & Ratios](/data-viewer/financials), [Comps](/data-viewer/comps) and
[Estimates](/data-viewer/estimates).
Take an ESG question you answered on one name — rating, governance flags, pillar scores — and run it
across its peers at scale in a **Grid**.
Use the ESG read as factual input for a generated stock research report; the Equities workspace can
kick one off for the ticker you are viewing.
Pair the company's MSCI profile with **Document Search** to find related filings, and collect the
sustainability reports into a **Data Room** for a project.
## Example workflow
**Goal: vet a holding's ESG standing for a mandate, document the risks, then scale the check across the
sector.**
1. Open the company in the Data Viewer and select **ESG**. Read the **Summary** for the MSCI rating, the
0–10 ESG score, the pillar scores and the material key issues.
2. Open **Scoring Profile** and find the key issues with a negative exposure-vs-management gap — the real
risk areas — then confirm in **Score Evolution** whether the rating is trending up or down.
3. Go to **Governance** and **Controversies** to check red flags — board independence, state ownership,
golden shares, clawbacks — and note any point deductions.
4. Open **Climate** to review the environmental themes, and **Peer Analysis** to see where the company
ranks globally and against its home market.
5. Press **Add to AI Chat** and ask the assistant to summarize the rating, the governance red flags and the
biggest exposure-vs-management gaps for your investment memo.
6. In **ESG Documents**, open the company's latest sustainability report in the reader, use **Ask AI about
this document** to pull specific disclosures, and collect it into a **Data Room** for the file.
7. To scale it, run a **Grid** that asks the same ESG questions across the company's peer group, and
generate a stock research report with **Reports** grounded in the ESG read.
## FAQ
All ratings and scores come from **MSCI ESG**. The reports in the ESG Documents tab are the company's
own published ESG/sustainability disclosures.
It is MSCI's ESG rating. AAA, AA and A are ESG **Leaders**, BBB and BB are **Average**, and B and CCC
are **Laggards** relative to industry peers. The tab color-codes the rating and shows the prior rating
and trend.
The ESG Score is the Weighted-Average Key Issue Score — key issues weighted by how material they are to
the industry — on a 0–10 scale. The Environmental, Social and Governance pillar scores are independent
0–10 metrics and do not sum to the ESG Score.
Exposure is how much the company is exposed to that ESG risk (higher = more at risk); Management is how
well it manages that risk. The key-issue score is a function of the two — a positive
management-minus-exposure gap is good, a negative gap signals an area needing attention.
ESG data is presented as monthly snapshots, each dated to the first of the month. Use the **“As of”**
selector to move between available snapshots, and open **Score Evolution** to see the trend across the
company's history.
Peer Analysis shows global and home-market percentile rankings, a governance quartile (Q1 best to Q4
worst), the rating-scale position (Leader / Average / Laggard), and score comparisons against a neutral
5.0 benchmark.
Controversies and Governance flag state ownership, stock-pyramid control, golden shares and external
management, plus per-category governance point deductions and business-ethics/fraud/corruption/tax
scores.
No. Climate data is expressed as MSCI 0–10 exposure and management scores for themes like Carbon
Emissions, Energy Efficiency and Water Stress; it does not include absolute emissions tonnage or
temperature-alignment figures.
Yes. **Add to AI Chat** sends the current ESG snapshot to the assistant, and in ESG Documents you can
send a specific sustainability report with **Ask AI about this document**.
Issues or themes that are not material to the company's industry (zero weight), or near-zero anomalous
data points, are shown as a dash rather than as misleading values.
## Getting help
For help using ESG or designing a sustainability or governance workflow around it, reach AllMind support
through the in-app support option or by scheduling a support call with your account team.