STOXX Limited, the market-moving provider of innovative, substantial and global index concepts, today introduced the STOXX Europe ESG Leaders 50, EURO STOXX ESG Leaders 50, STOXX Asia/Pacific ESG Leaders 50 and STOXX North America ESG Leaders 50 indices. The new blue-chip indices complement the existing, fully transparent STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index family.
STOXX furthermore announced that the company has become a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) as a professional service partner. The PRI is a global initiative which supports the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues into investment decision-making and ownership practices.
“STOXX is proud to be a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, and to provide market participants with innovative tools to incorporate ESG factors into their investment decisions,” said Hartmut Graf, chief executive officer, STOXX Limited. “With the launch of the regional STOXX ESG Leaders blue-chip indices, we are demonstrating our commitment to this pledge, as the new indices again set standards in terms of full transparency and comprehensiveness in the ESG indexing space.”
"We are pleased to welcome STOXX as a signatory to the PRI," said Wolfgang Engshuber, Chairman of the PRI. "Many PRI signatories have large, passive indexed holdings and are increasingly seeking indices which incorporate ESG issues to benchmark their performance. Thus, we appreciate STOXX's commitment towards the development of sustainability indices.”
The STOXX Europe ESG Leaders 50, EURO STOXX ESG Leaders 50, STOXX Asia/Pacific ESG Leaders 50 and STOXX North America ESG Leaders 50 indices rely on the same methodology and transparent component selection as the existing STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index family, which was developed in collaboration with Sustainalytics. The index concept has been mapped to the “KPIs for ESG 3.0” standard defined by Deutsche Vereinigung für Finanzanalyse und Asset Management (DVFA) and The European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS), and is fully approved by both organizations.
The index universe for the new blue-chip indices is the STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index. Components are selected based on the free-float market capitalization, and are weighted according to their overall ESG rating, i.e. the average of their Environmental (E), Social (S) and Governance (G) score.
Contrary to the existing STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index family, which is made up of three specialized indices for the categories Environmental, Social and Governance and one broad index, only one overall ESG index will be available for each regional blue-chip index. The index universe for the new regional blue-chip indices is the overall STOXX Global ESG Leaders Index. The new blue-chip indices represent the top 50 companies in terms of market capitalization for the respective region.
The STOXX Europe ESG Leaders 50, EURO STOXX ESG Leaders 50, STOXX Asia/Pacific ESG Leaders 50 and STOXX North America ESG Leaders 50 indices are available in price and gross return versions, as well as net return versions for Europe and the Euro zone. They are calculated in Euro, British pounds and U.S. dollars. The indices are reviewed annually in September, with the possibility of extra-ordinary reviews in the case that a company becomes ineligible under the exclusionary criteria.
Further information on the STOXX Global ESG Leaders indices is available on www.stoxx.com.
