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).

MSCI-ESG-rating

Out of the 30 Dow companies, MSCI ranks 12 blue-chip stocks as leaders, which are:

CompanyTickerMSCI ESG-rating
3M CompanyMMMAAA
Microsoft CorporationMSFTAAA
Merck & Co., IncMRKAAA
Coca-Cola Company (The)KOAA
Amgen IncAMGNAA
salesforce.com, incCRMAA
Honeywell International IncHONAA
American Express CompanyAXPAA
Cisco Systems Inc.CSCOAA
Home Depot Inc. (The)HDAA
International Business Machines CorporationIBMAA
Intel CorporationINTCAA