In 2024, S&P Global will invite over 13,000 companies to participate in the Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA).

The CSA Portal provides useful tools to efficiently manage the process of completing the questionnaire:

• Access a question-specific help function including background information on the rationale for each question/criterion as well as key definitions
• Prefill questionnaire responses using the most recent data S&P Global has on your company
• Easily attach supporting evidence, including hyperlinks, documents, and comments to support and illustrate your answers
• Quickly view questionnaire completion progress with a clear color-coding scheme
• Share access to the platform with internal (and external) team members to allow them to work directly on the questions to enable different users to enter data
• Choose your participation timelines to suit your company’s reporting schedule.

Our Taxonomy and API Partners

To further streamline the process of completing the CSA, we offer an XML Taxonomy - a coded representation of all 62 industry-specific CSA questionnaires. This allows you and your software providers to integrate the CSA questionnaire into your corporate reporting systems, enabling you to automatically transfer the required data from your information management platforms directly into the S&P Global CSA Portal. Not only does this reduce the time and resources needed to complete the assessment, but it also provides a consistent approach to transmitting sustainability information, improving the overall quality and accuracy of the data.

Each year, S&P Global invites all companies that will receive a public ESG Score to participate in the assessment process. The S&P Global Invited Universe is generally comprised of:

• Companies that are eligible for the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI). The underlying rules can be found here.
• Companies that form part of S&P Dow Jones Indices benchmark indices. The underlying rules can be found here.

S&P Global regularly evaluates its universe of assessed companies so that it stays relevant to the needs of the investment community, for example using the S&P Global Broad Market Index and market capitalization as a reference. S&P Global may add other, currently non-invited companies to the broader Research Universe. Moreover, non-invited issuers (i.e., individual companies) have the option to solicit a Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) and obtain an S&P Global ESG Score.

Invited Universe: A rules-based list of companies for which S&P Global Sustainable1 will perform a Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) on, and for which it will produce ESG Scores. These companies will be actively contacted (“invited”) to contribute to the assessment process. The Invited universe always refers to a specific methodology year.

Research Universe: All companies for which S&P Global Sustainable1 is going to perform a Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) on and produce ESG scores for, irrespective of their invitation status. This can include companies that are not part of the Invited Universe. The Research Universe always refers to a specific methodology year.

Companies that are invited but decide not to participate may be assessed by S&P Global based on publicly available information, and the resulting Scores and data may be shared via S&P Global platforms. Participation in the CSA is not a prerequisite for eligibility in the DJSI or other S&P ESG Indices.

Official invitations will be sent out between February and June. Companies may also check their invitation status using our search tool above and visit the CSA Portal to book their participation window at any time.

The 2024 CSA questionnaire opens for all companies on April 3rd. Companies can select a participation window that best meets individual reporting schedules, see CSA timeline. Log in to the CSA Portal to reserve a slot.

All companies, including the ones which are currently not covered by our CSA Invited Universe, can access the CSA as a Service and get a Public, Confidential or Provisional (based on hypothetical data) CSA Score. In other words, all companies, including individual issuers, asset managers, as well as private equity or private debt funds, can commission a CSA score on themselves, their subsidiaries, portfolio companies or suppliers. CSA as a Service applies the same rigorous methodology as we do for companies in our invited universe. 

Contact our Sustainability Specialists to learn more.