ISS ESG aggregates data from numerous non-subjective sources, and creates from that data a unique scoring and ranking system that is not currently available from other vendors. ISS ESG is the largest provider of ESG Scoring & Alternative Data for the U.S. Municipal Bond marketplace.
Each City/Town, County, and School District, Opportunity Zone, and State in the United States is scored and ranked using a proprietary methodology that analyzes census data, crime data, environmental data, personal infrastructure data and climate change data.
ESG Scorers and Ranking data is updated quarterly - within 30 days of each quarter end. Latest Ranking data is as of: 12/31/2020
ESG Scores & Rankings are provided at the following levels:
States vs all other States in America
City / Town vs all other Cities / Towns at the State and Nation level - 29,000 Cities and towns in America
County vs all other Counties at the State and Nation level - 3,141 Counties in America
School District vs all other School Districts at the State and Nation level - 14,300 School Districts in America
Opportunity Zones vs all other Opportunity Zones at the State and Nation level - 8,700 Opportunity Zones in America
Please Note: Clients can license all ESG Scoring, Ranking Data, and all underlying data through Bloomberg (BEAP) or Open:Factset
CUSIP and GEOID with or without ESG Scoring at the CUSIP level are available for license from CUSIP Global Services, or directly from: ISS ESG
The proprietary ESG scoring methodology and ranking calculations, provide metrics that can be utilized by various industries with differing objectives:
Municipal Bond Holders, Municipal Bond Issuers, as well as Traders of Municipal Securities – the Municipal Bond market is an expansive market of almost $4 trillion in issuance but suffers from a dearth of timely and insightful research. The ranking data of ISS ESG is a valuable tool for both issuer (by highlighting their ranking), as well as asset owner, in order to review a unique risk profile of assets held, or municipal bonds on a short list.
ESG Metrics - as the largest provider of Alt Data for the Municipal Marketplace, ISS ESG's dataset provides countless unique measurements for ESG risks. Example datasets are Crime, Cost of Crime, Safe Dinking Water Violations, Cyberattack/ ransomware incidents, Flood risk, NFIP claims, demographic data, and many more.
Personal Real Estate – assisting clients determine which county to live in when choosing a particular residential option. Ranking is provided at the county name level, as well as corresponding Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) value.
Commercial Real Estate – assisting investors and developers with where to best allocate funds on a geographic basis throughout the United States.
Index Benchmark firms – providing a unique and insightful data set that can be utilized to build custom fixed income benchmarks that would exceed the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) guidelines.
Insurance Firms – Insurance and Re-Insurance firms who, as part of their endless need for data, require detailed observations of each county to assist in evaluating risk for insurance and investing activities.
Content for websites – using ISS ESG, creating lists of the top places to live in America will no longer be limited to the top ten (which is subjectively set). Now city, county, school district, and opportunity zone rankings can be provided using specific criteria applied to the entire nation, or targeted to state or even region (i.e., the Northeast).