With the continuously deepening influence of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment, it has become one of the most important investment trends in the world at large. Global mainstream investors are actively involved in ESG investment practices. China's "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality" goals have accelerated the continuous growth of ESG investment in China, and a growing number of institutional investors as well as asset managers are integrating ESG factors into their considerations .
The ESG rating scope of SynTao Green Finance (STGF) has covered all A-share listed companies since 2020. According to the ESG rating information of A-share companies included in the STGF STαR ESG Data Platform, of the 4843listed companies in A-shares in 2022, a total of 1739 listed companies have an ESG rating of B or above, accounting for 35.9%, compared to 1245 companies with a rating of B or above in 2021, accounting for 26.4%. In 2022, 3104 have an ESG rating of "B-"or below, accounting for 64.1%. The above ESG rating results indicate that the improvement of ESG performance of A-share listed companies is accelerating.
Based on the ratings of all A-shares companies, we focus our analysis on the CSI 800 index constituents from 2018to 2023, and the main findings are:
ESG ratings of A-share listed companies have improved steadily, and the improvements are more evident for the leading listed companies represented by CSI 800 constituents.
Under the policy requirement of voluntary information disclosure, ESG information disclosure by A-share listed companies has developed rapidly, but there is still much room for improvement in disclosure quality.
The overall ESG performance of A-share listed companies in all major sectors and companies’s performance on various major ESG issues has improved, but there are still structural differences.
The frequency of ESG controversies remains high, but the controversy level tends to stabilise. According to the research and analysis of different industries of A-share companies, about 80% of the sector specific material ESG issues have a significant impact on share prices.
