2022/05/23 by Florian Berg, Julian F Kölbel, Roberto Rigobón · 10 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Engineering · #Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting #Sustainable Building Design and Assessment #Environmental Sustainability in Business
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/rof/rfac033
openalex publication_date 2022/05/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Abstract This paper investigates the divergence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings based on data from six prominent ESG rating agencies: Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini (KLD), Sustainalytics, Moody’s ESG (Vigeo-Eiris), S&P Global (RobecoSAM), Refinitiv (Asset4), and MSCI. We document the rating divergence and map the different methodologies onto a common taxonomy of categories. Using this taxonomy, we decompose the divergence into contributions of scope, measurement, and weight. Measurement contributes 56% of the divergence, scope 38%, and weight 6%. Further analyzing the reasons for measurement divergence, we detect a rater effect where a rater’s overall view of a firm influences the measurement of specific categories. The results call for greater attention to how the data underlying ESG ratings are generated.