Sustainability Rating Agencies vs Credit Rating Agencies: The Battle to Serve the Mainstream Investor

Contents
1 Introduction
2 The ‘Mainstreaming’ of Responsible Investment
	2.1 Definitional Complexity and the Origins of the Movement
	2.2 ‘Mainstreamisation’ and ESG Integration
	2.3 Constraints on a Concept
	2.4 The Reality of an Ideal
3 The Sustainability Rating Industry
	3.1 The Development of the Corporate Sustainability System Industry: A ‘Chaotic Universe’
		3.1.1 CDP Climate, Water, and Forest Scores
		3.1.2 RobecoSAM
		3.1.3 Sustainalytics
		3.1.4 MSCI ESG Ratings
		3.1.5 Bloomberg (ESG Scores)
		3.1.6 ISS-Oekom
		3.1.7 FTSE Russell ESG Ratings
		3.1.8 EcoVadis
		3.1.9 Thomson Reuters ESG Scores
		3.1.10 Vigeo-Eiris
		3.1.11 Standard Ethics
	3.2 Methodologies in Focus
		3.2.1 Sustainalytics
		3.2.2 MSCI ESG Scores
	3.3 Problems Affecting the CSS Universe
4 The Credit Rating Agencies
	4.1 The Credit Rating Picture
		4.1.1 The Trajectory of a Binding Relationship
	4.2 The Credit Rating Agencies and ESG
		4.2.1 The Principles for Responsible Investment
		4.2.2 S&P’s Reaction to the Investor Base
		4.2.3 Moody’s Reaction to the Investor Base
		4.2.4 Fitch Ratings’ Reaction to the Investor Base
	4.3 The Credit Rating Agencies Continue to Move Forward
5 ‘An Undercurrent of Need’: Understanding the Dynamics of the Responsible  Rating Relationship
	5.1 Institutional Investor Supremacy
	5.2 The Need for Standardisationn
	5.3 Signalling
	5.4 The Relevance of the Natural Oligopoly
6 Who Will Triumph?
	6.1 Standard Setting at the Global Level
	6.2 The U.S. Experience
	6.3 The European Experience
	6.4 ‘To the Victor Go the Spoils’
		6.4.1 One Last Attempt at Standardisation?
		6.4.2 What the Sustainability Environment Means for the CSS and Credit Rating Industries
7 Conclusion
Index