As previously seen on the CSRHub blog.
By Bahar Gidwani
When we founded CSRHub in 2007, we imagined bringing together and harmonizing the “wisdom of the sustainability crowd.” We wanted to bring together the disparate views on corporate ESG performance from Wall Street analysts, not for profit researchers, membership organizations, government databases, and advocacy groups. We started adding data sources to our platform, one by one. We imagined that we might at some point ingest 100, 200…maybe even 500 sources?
We recently ingested expert data source number 1,000! Because of the breadth and depth of the information we uncovered, we now provide CSRHub ratings and coverage on 60,000 entities from 159 countries. We are proud of reaching these milestones. We will keep bringing in data from our existing sources and adding new ones. (We add about 20,000,000 new data items to our base of 800 million each month.)
Achieved goals feels good. But, what about the future? How best to achieve our mission of enabling transparent access to company sustainability data and linking back to all our sources? Given the current market, what unique and meaningful contribution can we make to the success of the companies we follow?
One area that is expanding is helping companies manage their supply chains. Thanks to the growth in our coverage, we often cover more than 80% of the “spend” in a corporate supply chain. Adding data via one of our AI research partners can yield over 90% coverage. In less than a week, we can generate a report that helps supply chain managers look for sustainability-related risks and opportunities. We can improve resilience and help a company tie its supply chain goals to its overall sustainability framework.
We provide data directly—we have a RESTful API, Excel-based tools, and via support platforms such as Snowflake, Amazon Data Exchange, and FactSet. We also share our data with supply chain management software companies. These platforms combine our ratings with other signals to add our outside-in, expert perspective to the data suppliers self report.
A second area we are focusing on is support for the consultants and advisors who help companies report their ESG performance, try to improve their ratings, and comply with ESG regulations. We now offer products that help guide reporting, improve engagement with the ESG rating community, and prepare for frameworks such as CSRD, TNFD, the SDGs, SASB, and emerging California regulations.
Over a half million people around the world visited CSRHub’s website and used our top-level ratings this year. Thousands of customers bought data and tools from us directly or through our expanding list of partners. Rather than setting a new numeric goal, we’ll continue to collaborate with our sustainability community to increase corporate resilience and make the world more sustainable.
Bahar Gidwani is CTO and Co-founder of CSRHub. He has built and run large technology-based businesses for many years. Bahar holds a CFA, worked on Wall Street with Kidder, Peabody, and with McKinsey & Co. Bahar has consulted to a number of major companies and currently serves on the board of several software and Web companies. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy. He plays bridge, races sailboats, and is based in New York City.
About CSRHub
CSRHub offers the most comprehensive global set of expert consensus sustainability ratings, information, and tools. Clients use CSRHub’s decisive data platform for global benchmarking, supply and value chain risk assessment and compliance readiness solutions. Founded in 2007, CSRHub covers over 60,000 public and private companies, and provides ESG performance scores on 42,000 companies from 134 industries in 158 countries. Our Big Data platform uses algorithms to aggregate, normalize and weight ESG metrics from 1,000 sources to produce a strong consensus signal on corporate sustainability performance.
