European ESG Finance Report shows 17% of Boards still have no female representation
9fin, the leading leveraged finance (levfin) intelligence platform, has published a comprehensive report on European ESG within levfin alongside its new ESG Company Data product launch. The data from the report highlighted some depressing trends for reporting on diversity metrics including:
- Only 9% of companies report their gender pay gap across all geographies
- Board representation of under-represented groups was only 4% and the least reported metric across the sector
- 95% of boards had less than 50% of women on them, and 17% had no women on the board
This lack of diversity reporting has been impacted by the historical dominance of environmental metrics within ESG reporting. Social and Governance only account for one of the top five metrics reported. Additionally, 9 of the 14 mandatory SFDR requirements are environmental factors.
The intelligence provider has analysed thousands of sources to build a data product that offers standardised ESG information, including the ability to trace key data points back to their original source. The product launch comes ahead of new legislation which will impact Financial Market Participants (FMPs). As of December 2022, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is set to enforce the mandatory disclosure of 14 data points known as the Principal Adverse Impact (PAI) indicators.
This new ESG product enhances 9fin’s existing market-leading ESG offering, including its ‘ESG QuickTake’ reports — analysis produced by in-house experts, delivered shortly after any new deal announcement in European high-yield bonds and leveraged loans. The platform also offers a one-stop shop for ESG LevFin information with ESG news and analysis, company and instrument-level data, and a database of ESG documents.
Steven Hunter, 9fin co-founder & CEO, commented: “We are delighted to announce the launch of our new ESG Company Data. Currently, there is a distinct lack of high-quality ESG information in the leveraged finance space with too many firms still disclosing little or no information.
As our report highlights there is a huge imbalance across ESG with firms historically focusing on environmental metrics rather than social and governance.
The team at 9fin have worked hard to deliver this new ESG data using a mixture of technology, specialist expertise and proprietary analysis. We’ll continue to invest heavily in our ESG offering to bring much-needed transparency to this emerging part of the LevFin market.”
To find out more about the new ESG Company Data product please follow this link –9fin ESG
