Bloomberg has thrown its hat into the ring in the race to become the dominant provider of sustainability data and ratings, launching its first in-house ESG scores for investors. The financial giant whose namesake, Michael Bloomberg, chairs the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, through which more than 1,000 organisations have agreed to report on climate risk will begin by scoring Oil & Gas firms on environmental and social performance, and will assess thousands of companies’ board composition. The environmental and social scores will initially cover 252 companies in Oil & Gas, because of the sector’s systemic role in climate change, and because “there is typically stronger disclosure data from these companies”, Bloomberg said in a statement. Last month, Responsible-Investor revealed that Moody’s Vigeo Eiris would make its ESG ratings free and public, following similar announcements from MSCI and Sustainalytics. The trend comes as the industry faces increasing pressure over the lack of coordination and consistency in ESG ratings offered by different providers.

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