Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) becomes more important to shareholders. Investors paying more attention to ESG stocks and the number of companies that report on CSR are still growing.
ESG-ratings are for example calculated by the investment research firm MSCI. This firm maintains MSCI ESG ratings on nearly 2,800 companies and is a good source for investors, see for example the ESG Search-tools. Another good ESG data source is Sustainalytics, which is a Morningstar company.
The MSCI ESG ratings range from industry leaders (AAA, AA), to average (A, BBB, BB) to laggard (B, CCC).
Out of the 30 Dow companies, MSCI ranks 12 blue-chip stocks as leaders, which are:
| Company | Ticker | MSCI ESG-rating |
|---|---|---|
| 3M Company | MMM | AAA |
| Microsoft Corporation | MSFT | AAA |
| Merck & Co., Inc | MRK | AAA |
| Coca-Cola Company (The) | KO | AA |
| Amgen Inc | AMGN | AA |
| salesforce.com, inc | CRM | AA |
| Honeywell International Inc | HON | AA |
| American Express Company | AXP | AA |
| Cisco Systems Inc. | CSCO | AA |
| Home Depot Inc. (The) | HD | AA |
| International Business Machines Corporation | IBM | AA |
| Intel Corporation | INTC | AA |