A labor dispute in the freight rail industry that brought the US to the brink of a potential economic catastrophe was averted this week, as unions and rail companies came to an agreement. One of the main reasons for the labor dispute was a newish system the rail industry was using that they claim maintained service while using fewer resources. We discussed why this new system is a paradigm for the current troubles many industries are having due to labor disputes, and what to watch when companies and labor have strife. Then, we discuss how institutional asset owners, some of the largest, most influential participants in the financial market, can take their portfolios toward net zero (this has more to do with you than you think).

A week into the highly publicized IPO for Lyft Inc., the ride-sharing company, it’s hard to say it went exactly as planned.

The long haul many are bracing for has already started for ESG investors. Each of our five ESG trends to watch in 2019 contain potentially overlooked costs – and opportunities.

Whether it is policy, technological or climactic change, companies face an onslaught of challenges that are happening sooner and more dramatically than many can anticipate.  Investors in turn are looking for ways to position their portfolios to best navigate the uncertainty. In 2018, investors will: use ESG signals to help navigate the evolving size and shape of the emerging markets universe; expand their view of portfolio climate risk to macro exposures across asset classes; accelerate...

Using market returns as a starting point, we focus on the U.S. energy sector to better understand how the possibility of regulatory easing could affect sector, company and investor performance. For the energy sector, we suggest that regulatory changes alone may be unlikely to upend global supply and demand dynamics for fossil fuels, with renewable energy adoption driven by global market-led factors extending beyond regulations in a single market. Falling demand for fossil fuels due to...

Rather than understanding gender through the lens of performance, our approach to this paper was to understand whether the gender gap was a function of talent and labor availability rather than cultural bias.  In short – do financial firms maximize their available talent and labor supplies? MSCI ESG Research estimated the available supply of talent workforce in any given country and mapped them to individual financial firms based on the geographies where they operate and recruit talents...

This year may usher in a fundamental rethink for investors. Underlying all the major trends we identified for 2017 is a strategic decision point – do we change the way we think about investing, or is this business as usual in a new order? In our annual trends to watch report, we highlight the six biggest ESG forces affecting institutional investors over the long haul. To read data from other years, please see our ESG Trends page.

To solve for the next generation of investors’ demands for greater transparency around the ESG characteristics of their investments, MSCI ESG Research is introducing the concept of ESG Quality with the calculation of a Fund ESG Quality Score across over 21,000 mutual funds and ETFs. Funds with higher scores are comprised of companies managing their ESG risks relative to industry peers.

To solve for the next generation of investors’ demands for greater transparency around the ESG characteristics of their investments, MSCI ESG Research is introducing the concept of ESG Quality with the calculation of a Fund ESG Quality Score across over 21,000 mutual funds and ETFs. Funds with higher scores are comprised of companies managing their ESG risks relative to industry peers.

In our annual trends report, we highlight the key environmental, social and governance (ESG) trends that are top of mind for investors going into the New Year. In 2016, these trends reflect a softening economy, a long-term shift to a low carbon economy, a generational changeover and institutional forces.   Download the Research Spotlight "2016 ESG Trends to Watch." To read data from other years, please see our ESG Trends page.

Many institutional investors are increasingly focused on the gender composition of company boards. Our latest research shows that companies in the MSCI World Index with strong female leadership generated a Return on Equity of 10.1% per year versus 7.4% for those without, as of September 9, 2015, though we could not establish causality. We found that companies lacking board diversity suffered more governance-related controversies than average. Global asset owners are promoting a 30% global...

Since our analysis in December 2013 on the diversity of tax rates paid by MSCI World companies, the regulatory outlook has shifted substantially. In our updated analysis, we identify 243 companies (out of 1,093 relevant1 companies within the MSCI World Index constituents) as having a large tax gap, paying an average rate of 17.7%, versus 34.0%, if these companies were paying taxes in the jurisdictions where they generate revenues.