ESG Firms Dataset (ESGFiDa)

Abstract

The Environmental, Social and Governance Information Firms Dataset (ESGFiDa) aggregates academic, industry and regulatory literature on ESG data firms, that is commercial actors that are involved in the emerging field of providing Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data. By doing so, ESGFiDa contributes to a more systematic understanding of the evolving industry of ESG information firms. In addition, ESGFiDa offers a meta-analysis of existing efforts from academic and grey literature to study ESG information firms. ESGFiDa was constructed in a multi-stage data collection process that combined the aggregation of data from the literature with additional primary data that augment existing observations. Going from left to right, figure 1 (see wiki or download ESGFiDa1.1.xlsx) shows the staged process of compiling the two different but interrelated datasets contained in ESGFiDa. The first dataset covers a meta-analysis of studies on the ESG information industry, while the second dataset provides an aggregation and augmentation of existing data. In addition, the figure introduces the structure of the dataset by directing the reader to the sheet of the xlsx file that contains ESGFiDa, where the observations referred to in the figure can be found. Starting from the left, the purple box illustrates that the first stage of data collection consisted of compiling 21 articles and reports that offer an overview of the ESG industry. These articles and reports were subsequently screened for information regarding the "size" of the ESG industry (e.g. proxied by the number of ESG rating agencies or ESG products). Wherever the mentioned estimates on the size of the ESG industry were attributed to another publication, this publication was tracked down and included in the dataset pertaining to the meta-analysis (orange boxes). After data cleaning, 27 estimates of the ESG industry and their attributes were recorded in sheet 3 of ESGFiDa. To compile a consolidated dataset of ESG data firms the 21 initial articles were also screened for lists of the names of ESG data firms and additional data sources mentioned in these initial articles were added (blue boxes). This process resulted in a total of 15 articles that provide names lists or in-text mentions of ESG data firms. Aggregating the mentioned firms resulted in an initial list of 148 potential ESG information firms that are displayed on sheet 4 of ESGFiDa. After screening out 20 firms that do not qualify as ESG information firms (see sheet 4 Exclusion_justification) 128 ESG information firms remain in sheet 5. Features about these 128 observations were, subsequently, retrieved from the previously reviewed academic, industry and regulatory publications as well as from specialist news and data providers (e.g. Bloomberg, Responsible Investor, company registry websites) company websites (including web archives / wayback machine for defunct or merged companies) and company online information on LinkedIn and Wikipedia. Features of individual ESG information firms are recorded on sheet 5, while relational data regarding firms' mergers and acquisitions that can be used for network analyses are stored on sheet 6. A more detailed description of the variables contained in sheets 2 to 6 can be found at the bottom of this sheet