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Investing in strategies built around Environmental, Socially Conscious/Social Awareness, and Governance principles (ESG) has gained increased popularity over the last decade as great strides have been made around data collection and standardization. Investors and asset allocators can feel more comfortable today building ESG-focused programs that are more globally diversified and built on more objective, standardized data and less easily swayed by individual judgments.
There are several data providers competing for the "VHS/Betamax" stamp for industry standardization, with Sustainalytics and MSCI emerging as the two primary research providers. The former serves as