RiskMetrics Group’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) team just released a new study today which identifies large differences in global sustainability governance. The extent to which large cap global companies are regulating themselves with regard to ethics, climate change, other environmental concerns, and labor and human rights varies significantly by nationality and industry sector. These findings emerge from RiskMetrics Group's year-long project assessing more than 1,700 global companies--including the S&P 500, the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 and the Morgan Stanley EAFE index excluding Japan--on more than 200 policy and performance indicators.

EAFE companies clearly outperform S&P 500 firms on both climate change and other environmental issues, but U.S. firms have the edge on ethics policies. For labor and human rights, overall performance between EAFE and S&P 500 did not differ substantially. Canadian firms (the TSX 300), overall, lagged companies in the other two indices, but did best on labor and human rights. In addition, while some individual companies stand out as clear leaders, overall average performance by sector and industry stood at less than 50 percent of the ideal defined in the research model.

To access the study, please visit here.