LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new tool that allows investors, regulators, NGOs, corporates, and consumers to monitor the sustainability of over 4,000 of the world’s largest corporations has been launched today.
Arabesque S-Ray™ is designed to streamline vast amounts of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information into one easy-to-use, smart application. Its unbiased diagnostic technology processes countless data points to evaluate companies in three ways:
- GC Score – a normative assessment of each company based on the core principles of the United Nations Global Compact.
- ESG Score – a sector specific analysis of each corporation’s performance on financially material ESG issues.
- Preferences Filter – a search tool that allows anyone to check the business involvements of companies against their personal values.
The technology has been developed by Arabesque, an ESG Quant asset manager that uses self-learning quantitative models and big data to assess the performance and sustainability of companies.
Speaking on the launch of Arabesque S-Ray™, Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, said: “The power of transparency will help to create more sustainable corporate practices.”
Through machine learning and big data, Arabesque S-Ray™ systematically combines over 200 ESG metrics with news signals from over 50,000 sources across 15 languages.
It is the first tool of its kind to rate companies on the normative principles of the United Nations Global Compact: Human Rights, Labour Rights, the Environment, and Anti-Corruption (GC Score). Additionally, Arabesque S-Ray™ provides an industry-specific assessment of companies’ performance on financially material sustainability criteria (ESG Score).
Both scores are combined with a preferences filter that allows anyone to better understand each company’s business involvements, and how those activities align with personal values.
Omar Selim, CEO of Arabesque, said: “With its name inspired by the impact of the X-Ray on medicine, Arabesque S-Ray™ enables anyone to look beneath a company’s surface. Our objective is to take sustainability into the mainstream by making it available in a practical and cost efficient way. S-Ray’s unbiased algorithms harness the power of artificial intelligence, processing big data to produce a daily snapshot of a corporation’s sustainability.”
Confirmed to be piloted as an integrity measure by the United Nations Global Compact later this year, Arabesque S-Ray™ is available to the general public for free with a three-month data delay. A paid subscription service for corporations, investors, and investment professionals has also been developed, with access to daily information, an in-depth dashboard on each company, and download functions.
John Ruggie, Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, said of today’s launch: “Arabesque S-Ray™ is a unique initiative unleashing big data to provide rankings of the sustainability practices of the largest listed companies in the world. And not a moment too soon, given the precarious state of globalization today. May it move markets!”
Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of Transparency International, added: “The public availability of companies’ sustainability data is crucial for the larger goal of good corporate governance and integrity.”
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For more information on Arabesque S-Ray™, please visit www.arabesque.com/s-ray
About Arabesque
Arabesque is a specialist ESG Quant fund manager that uses self-learning quantitative models and big data to assess the performance and sustainability of globally listed companies. Its investment technology processes over 100 billion data points to select an investment universe of equities, integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) information with quantitative strategies.
Arabesque was launched in 2013 following a management buyout from Barclays Bank PLC, and was built in cooperation with professors from the universities of Stanford, Cambridge, Oxford, Maastricht, and the German Fraunhofer Society, in support of the United Nations Global Compact.
Arabesque Asset Management Ltd is a limited liability company registered in England and Wales (no. 08636689) with its registered office at 68 Brook Street, London W1K 5DZ, authorized and regulated by the FCA (no. 610729) and registered as an investment adviser with the SEC (#801-107600). Arabesque (Deutschland) GmbH is a limited liability company organized under the laws of Germany, registered with the commercial register of the local court of Frankfurt am Main (HRB no. 97525), and having its seat and business address at Zeppelinallee 15, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
