ESG ratings are becoming an increasingly important indicator for companies of all sizes as they certify the stability of the company from the perspective of environmental, social and governance aspects.
Therefore, ESG ratings provide an indication of the company's ability to:
- create shared value with all stakeholders over time
- measure business decisions by analysing all impacts (economic and non-economic) that they result in
- Communicate the sustainability impacts of decisions for each ESG factor
However, given the many different factors that need to be considered, many companies decide to rely on an ESG solution for ESG ratings. The choice of solution is crucial as, when assessing ESG ratings, it is important to follow an approach based on shared standards and certified data.
Synesgy meets these requirements thanks to an innovative platform for ESG sustainability assessment that helps companies to collect and manage sustainability information through an ESG self-assessment, complete with evaluation, benchmarks and guidance on the development plan to be undertaken.
A platform for sustainability assessment and ESG ratings
Synesgy is a global alliance of leading companies improving the transition to sustainability with data and information collected through an innovative digital platform. The members of the alliance - all experts in economic and business information on worldwide companies - are committed to collect and aggregate data from around the world to create harmonized, comparable and predictive information that they enhance within their clients' business processes.
And they do that thanks to an innovative digital solution that allows companies to evaluate their ESG performances not only by assessing their own ESG ratings, but looking at all the actors that form their supply chain.
In this way, Synergy helps companies to tackle an important challenge: measuring the sustainability of their supply chain. This is crucial because a sustainability strategy that does not take into account what happens along the supply chain is doomed to fail.
ESG ratings, how the Synesgy method works
Synesgy's approach to assessing ESG ratings begins with a self-assessment questionnaire, which is certified by the CRIF Rating Agency (CRA).
Synergy’s questionnaires have a two-tiered structure:
- A core section, that focuses on the Business side and the Environment, Social and Governance principles with questions referring to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
- An industry-specific section to explore the context in which the company operates.
The framework, therefore, combines internationally recognised standards with a process that ensures the quality of data with both automatic and manual checks. The platform, in fact, has an alert system that is able to detect inconsistencies in the answer provided by the user. If the systems detect an issue, Synesgy’s team of experienced analysts check the documentation and, if necessary, contact the compiler directly.
To make the process even easier, Synesgy offers customer care and consultancy support for each country in which it has a presence.
An intuitive dashboard for ESG ratings
The process leads to two main results: ESG ratings and an action plan.
Ratings are shown in an intuitive and clear way thanks to Synesgy’s dashboard which allows to visualize the company’s performance in five key areas - Business, Environment, Social, Governance and Sector - as well as its ESG general ratings.
From the platform, companies can also easily download a certificate of their ESG ratings, which has a one-year validity.
Additionally, the model allows companies to evaluate ESG ratings for suppliers, thanks to dedicated ESG performance dashboards where they can view and analyse the scores obtained by their suppliers in the different areas.
Improve ESG ratings with Synesgy’s action plan
Synesgy not only certifies the current situation, but is committed to helping companies improve their ESG performances. Based on the data provided, Synesgy produces a report which provides the complete analysis of the individual ESG performance and related sections of the industry sector that contribute to composing the ESG score and the relative ranking.
The report also provides an action plan, which underlines the areas of the business that need attention in terms of sustainability performances. With this approach, Synesgy helps companies to tackle the challenge of calculating and monitoring ESG performances along the supply chain, providing clear guidance on issues to be solved to improve ESG ratings.
