The long-anticipated ESG ratings exclusively for companies in Taiwan, TESG, has officially debuted! TESG is an indicator of corporate ESG and is developed especially for “responsible lending” and “responsible investment.” With more than 20 years of research experience in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and quantitative analysis, TEJ will launch the ESG ratings of Taiwan-listed and OTC companies, TESG Rating, by the end of the first quarter this year!
TEJ has been dedicated to corporate governance and ESG-related research since 2002. In 2005, a corporate governance database was launched according to OECD and Taiwan’s Code of Corporate Governance Best-Practice Principles. As time goes by, corporate social responsibility has gotten more and more popular around the globe. In response to the popularity, TEJ organized the information of eight aspects of corporate social responsibility with ISO26000 and KLD in 2015. The CSR database provided in 2020 focuses on the ESG framework and provides useful evaluation indicators. In the same year, with regard to the announcement of Green Finance 2.0, the competent authority implemented responsible investment and lending in the financial industry and established more rules to follow. TEJ started the research and development of ESG ratings exclusive to Taiwanese companies accordingly. After a year and a half of hard work, the TESG Rating will finally be launched in the first quarter of this year!
TESG covers all companies listed in Taiwan. The measurement variables include CSR reports, the annual report of the shareholders’ meeting, and other public information which includes the Labor Standards Act, ISO, GMP product certificate, and negative news related to social responsibility to offset the problem that most companies do not disclose CSR reports.
This article is the first to introduce the main focuses of research and development for TESG:
Table of Contents
There are many ways to develop ratings, including by expert judgment, semi-expert judgment, and quantitative methods, while TESG is fully quantitative. The establishment of a quantitative rating must rely on a huge database. It needs to ensure the correctness of the data and to find representative ESG measurement variables. The variables selected for the TESG Rating follow the GRI guidelines and are matched with the information available in the Taiwan market to establish three pillars and 16 issues. The 16 issues include the identification of quantifiable variables and the degree of information disclosure. The more detailed a company’s ESG disclosure is, the more effort a company has put into ESG. If the company’s disclosure has been confirmed, assured, or guaranteed by an accountant or a third party, a better level will be obtained.
When establishing a set of ESG indicators specific to listed companies in Taiwan, we considered the fact that most companies have not been required to prepare or actively prepare CSR reports (even if they disclose, the content is not standardized). Therefore, the scope of data collection is not limited to CSR reports and annual reports. Other external information such as ISO certification, GMP certification, joining international advocacy organizations, or the related disclosures of employee welfare can also be used to prove the implementation of enterprises in ESG. In this way, even if the company does not prepare a CSR report, ratings can be based on external information.
In the future, Taiwan will adopt the SASB Sustainability Accounting Standards and disclose information in accordance with the SASB Materiality Map. Due to differences in industries, issues regarding the three-pillar (E, S, and G) will receive different levels of attention. For instance, Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC) belongs to the “Extractives and Mineral Processing” industry under SASB, and its carbon emissions or resource use cannot be compared with Cathay United Bank which belongs to the classification of “Financials.” Therefore, TESG will be divided into 11 categories according to the SASB standards for Taiwanese enterprises, and different weights will be given to E, S, and G for different industries.
TESG ratings include seven levels, which are further categorized into three groups, leader, average, and laggard. Through the rating, one can directly understand the ESG level of a company. By taking a deep look into the scores of a company in the three pillars (E, S, and G) and the ranking in the industry, you can also understand which pillar the company has performed the best or the worst. Scores can be used to compare in the same industry and ratings can be applied to comparison across industries.
After the launch of Green Finance 2.0, Taiwan Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) surveyed 51 financial companies in Taiwan that signed the Stewardship Principles (financial holdings, banks, brokerages, investment trust, and insurance companies) and completed Taiwan’s first sustainable finance survey. The survey found that regarding the limitations of applying ESG to decision-making processes, as high as 84.4% of the respondents believe that the lack of quantitative information on ESG is to blame. Insufficient ESG information related to financial materiality and the high cost of obtaining ESG information are also difficulties for ESG applications in the financial industry. TESG Rating developed by TEJ helps tackle these current difficulties in promoting responsible investment and responsible lending, and it also features:
