The Sustainable Development Investments Asset Owner Platform (SDI AOP) has enhanced its dataset to include information on corporates’ negative contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Used by asset owners and managers to assess investee firms’ alignment with UN SDGs, the SDI AOP dataset now identifies revenues generated by products and services defined as inconsistent with achieving the global goals.
“Adding negative contribution data is the direct result of regular exchanges with our subscribers,” said James Leaton, research director, SDI AOP. “As this community is growing, we are integrating their feedback into the development of the data.” .
Leaton cited single use plastic packaging as an example of a negative contribution, as it is not consistent with UN SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production and is the primary contributor to marine plastic pollution under UN SDG 14.
The new release also includes methodology enhancements and additional data granularity.
In response to user demand, the SDI AOP said it will be increasing the frequency of data releases to quarterly, starting in December 2022.
A fixed income mapping was also introduced, to allow users to seamlessly map their instruments to issuer level SDI data.
SDI AOP helps investors to embed the UN SDGs into their investment processes and integrate SDG contributions into their portfolio management and reporting, enabling target setting and progress monitoring.
The SDI AOP is also responsible for the development and maintenance of the SDI taxonomy and guidance, SDI definitions and SDI classification methodology.
The platform is operated by asset owners APG, AustralianSuper, British Columbia Investment Management Corp and PGGM, and its underlying data is available to the market through analytics and index provider Qontigo.
