There are five levels to the ‘ecology’ of SRI indices:
- Index providers
- Index families (or series)
- Indices
- SRI research agencies
- Investment product providers
Index providers
All of the main index providers now have SRI capabilities. These capabilities are described in the SRI-CONNECT profiles for the following:
- Dow Jones Indexes
- FTSE
- MSCI (Indices)
- Russell (Indices)
- STOXX
- S&P (Indices)
Index families
Many of the index providers offer a number of different types of SRI indices. These are typically grouped into ‘families’ of indices with similar characteristics.
For example, FTSE offers SRI indices grouped into the following ‘families’:
- FTSE4Good indices
- FTSE CDP Carbon Strategy indices
- FTSE ECPI Italia SRI indices
- FTSE Environmental Markets indices
Many of the other index providers group their indices in similar ways.
Indices
Within families of similar styles, providers typically offer a number of individual indices – each with a slight variation in scope. Staying with the FTSE example, the FTSE4Good family consists of a number of constituent indices including: FTSE4Good Europe Benchmark Index, FTSE4Good Europe 50 Index, FTSE4Good US 100 Index etc.
SRI research providers
Specialist SRI research providers are used to identify which companies are (and are not) suitable for particular indices. These providers can be:
- In-house to the index provider (e.g. MSCI ESG Research provides research for the MSCI ESG indices)
- External SRI agencies (e.g. EIRIS for FTSE4Good)
- Independent fund managers (e.g. SAM for DJGSI or Sarasin for STOXX Sustainability Indices)
Investment product providers
Passive fund managers and product providers purchase index licences that enable them to manage funds or to create and manage structured products.
Index providers also supply risk data and analytics tools to asset managers in their attribution analysis and other reporting activities.
