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ESG data: 200+ metrics. Includes carbon emissions, global warming (Paris Agreement) alignment, water withdrawal, government fines, patents granted, net-zero commitments, board and employee diversity, etc. Includes coverage of ~7800 companies and ~6000 funds.
Pricing options:
- Personal* use $200 / month
*Personal use means use by non-professional traders and investors for personal activities, and does not include usage for any professional position or association. Does not allow use of data to construct a financial product such as an index or SMA. All use of Ethos data is subject to the Ethos License Terms. - Commercial* use $300 / month
*Commercial use means use for any professional trading or investing. Not for public display and does not allow use of data to construct a financial product such as an index or SMA. All use of Ethos data is subject to the Ethos License Terms.
Ethos aggregates data for approximately 280 unique metrics. Metrics include data such as Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions, government fines and controversies, patents granted, policies to hire adults with disabilities, and much more. See Appendix A for a full list of the metrics that Ethos covers.
Ethos customers can access raw metrics data through the Ethos API, CSV download on the Ethos platform, or directly on the Ethos platform.
For each metric, Ethos collects data from independent organizations, government agencies, company reports, and other publicly-available sources. The collection and maintenance process is described in more detail below.
Data collection, testing and maintenance
Ethos collects, integrates, and maintains data for approximately 280 ESG metrics (see the full list in Appendix A). The process for updating production (live) data follows a monthly and weekly cadence:
Monthly process
New data is collected on a rolling basis, following a varying schedule for each metric. For example, company self-reported information is often collected on a rolling annual basis (when a company releases its sustainability report), government fines data quarterly, controversies information weekly, and financial-related information daily.
Ethos collects data through a variety of formats, including:
• Manual: some data requires manual collection. This is often the case with company
information self-reported through annual reports or sustainability reports.
• API: Ethos collects some data through third-party APIs, such as company financial data.
• Licensed: some of Ethos’ sources are from licensed third parties, such as government fines data.
• Scraping: Ethos writes code to monitor and collect information from public sources, such as media reports containing controversies information.
Raw collected data is stored securely in the cloud. Ethos stores both the original format (e.g., a PDF) and data converted into standard files, such as spreadsheets.
While collection happens continuously, integration into Ethos’ database follows a weekly and monthly schedule. Most data is integrated on a monthly schedule.
On the 1st business day of a month, Ethos integrates new data collected over the previous month. This involves:
• Local data validation and quality control: Ethos team members look through all collected
information to ensure accuracy and completeness.
• Tagging with Ethos taxonomy: every metric on Ethos has a unique key. Ethos team
members tag data for each new metric with the correct unique metric key.
• Mapping to company database: Ethos team members ensure correct mapping of company-level data points to the master company record in Ethos’ database. Ethos uses a variety of keys to connect a raw datapoint with the master company record, including symbols/tickers, a database of unique strings, and other commonly-used identifiers.
• Uploading formatted files to the cloud: Ethos team members create separate formatted files for each metric that has updated data. Files have a standard format, including columns for metric key, date, data, and company-level identifiers. Once a file has been approved by the Ethos’ ESG data lead, it is uploaded to Ethos’ secure data storage on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Updating data in staging environment: Ethos developers then execute code to pull data from AWS and update metrics in Ethos’ staging environment (non-live version of Ethos).
• Randomized tests on data quality: Ethos team members perform manual, randomized checks of at least 30 datapoints and check accuracy against raw data. Ethos requires 100% accuracy of these checks. In the event an error is found, Ethos team members revisit the entire dataset uploaded to AWS.
• Updating data in production environment: Ethos updates data in the production
environment (live version of Ethos). Updated data replaces previous data.
New data is made live on the 1st business day of each month; changes to ratings of companies, funds and portfolios happen once per month on the 10th day of the month:
• Rating update summaries: Ethos team members prepare update summaries for customers by the 1st business day of each month. These summaries include a list of any material rating changes that will occur for companies, funds and portfolios in the customer’s account, as well as rationales for the changes.
• Sent to customers: Ethos sends update summaries to customers by the 1st of each month, if the customer has opted-in to receive the summaries.
• Thresholds: customers may set thresholds for when to receive update summaries, e.g., if a portfolio rating is set to change by 5 or more points.
• Feedback: customers may provide feedback to Ethos during the window between the 1st and the 10th day of the month. Ethos will consider and incorporate feedback as it deems appropriate and, in some cases where necessary, delay release of updated ratings.
• Live rating updates: rating changes are made live on the 10th of each month. Updated ratings replace previous ratings.
Corrections: in certain circumstances, such as errors in the calculation of metrics or in the input data used for the calculation, Ethos reserves the right to correct metrics disclosed on Ethos’ website. In such cases Ethos releases a relevant announcement on its website.
Weekly process
In some cases Ethos updates data on a weekly basis. This is typically the case when there are major controversies or other news stories that warrant a more rapid update.
The Ethos team monitors for controversies and other media stories on an ongoing basis, through both automated code (scraping for controversy and company-related keywords) and manual monitoring.
When a controversy occurs and the Ethos team deems it severe enough to warrant an expedited data update, the team follows a defined process to update the controversy data:
• Determine controversy score: the team determines the controversy score on a scale from 1 (most severe) to 10 (least severe), using criteria including severity of impact (e.g., were there deaths or injuries involved), extent of impact, and level of involvement of the company.
• Update files in the cloud: Ethos adds the controversy to a master file of controversies, including mapping to Ethos’ database of companies, and uploads to its secure storage in the cloud.
• Update record in staging environment: Ethos developers execute code to update the controversy record in Ethos staging (test) environment.
• Update record in production environment: after testing the data on staging, Ethos
developers execute code to make the new controversy data live in production.
While controversy data may update within a week, ratings for a company with new controversies will still follow the above monthly schedule.
Periodic internal testing
Ethos also performs broader, periodic tests to help ensure that ratings, analyses and metrics reflect the most accurate data available. These broader tests include:
Comparison to other ESG data sources: Ethos calculates correlations of its Overall Impact scores to overall ESG ratings made public by other established ESG data providers, for a sample of 500 companies. Ethos ratings typically show 55-70% correlation with major providers. Ethos uses some similar metrics as other providers (e.g., company self-reported emissions, board and management diversity data), but also incorporates lesser-used metrics such as non-governmental organization ratings.
Feedback from customers and partners: our customers and partner organizations have a wealth of experience in ESG practice and research. We take regular feedback on the selection and prioritization of metrics, as well as potential new metrics and analyses that we should consider.
Data source survey and additions: Ethos periodically surveys available public data sources and potential licensed sources that may enhance our model. Example metrics that we have recently or are in the process of incorporating include government fines data and corporate lobbying data.
Internal data audits: the Ethos team performs periodic deep-dive, manual audits of our database, including updating companies and funds with M&A activity, looking for out-of-date sources or information, and assessing potential deletion of less valuable metrics.
Media and public perception assessment: Ethos also conducts a periodic evaluation of public sentiment related to companies and funds in our database, and checks for any
misalignment with Ethos’ ratings. Where this is misalignment between public perception and Ethos’ ratings, Ethos confirms that data sources such as controversies, fines, and employee reviews are up-to-date, and considers incorporating new information in the subsequent weekly or monthly data update process.
External testing and audit
Ethos is speaking with several audit firms to validate our data processes.
Recipients may only use the Information provided by Ethos internally at the Recipient, and may not
share, distribute, or display the Information without prior written consent from Ethos. If Recipient wishes to share, distribute, or display the Information externally, Recipient must reach a separate written agreement with Ethos. Recipients may not use the Information or any derivations of the Information:
- to create indices or other financial products for sale
- to create reports or analysis shared with its own customers or anyone outside of the Recipient’s organization
- to generate other derived data for use outside of the Recipient’s organization.
