A solid financial foundation to create a virtuous city

Created in 2004, Gaïa Research is the ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) research agency of the EthiFinance group, dedicated to small and medium-sized companies listed on European markets. Each year, Gaïa evaluates over 2,300 companies, including 400 in France.

Gaïa Research evaluates the companies it covers according to a reference framework of approximately 120 criteria, divided into four pillars

• Environmental

The CDP is an international non-profit organization that manages one of the world’s largest environmental databases. The CDP assesses more than 5,800 companies each year and encourages investors, companies, states and regions to measure their impact and take action. An organization’s overall environmental impact is calculated through responses to various CDP questionnaires.

MSCI’s ESG ratings measure a company’s management of financially relevant ESG risks and opportunities. They use a specific methodology to identify ESG leaders and laggards based on their exposure to ESG risks and how they manage those risks relative to their peers. The MSCI ESG Rating assesses more than 8,500 companies (14,000 issuers, including subsidiaries) and more than 680,000 equities and fixed income securities worldwide (as of October 2020), collecting thousands of data points for each company. Ratings range from the most advanced (AAA, AA) to the least advanced (B, CCC) to the average (A, BBB, BB).

Moody’s ESG is a subsidiary of Moody’s. With more than 30 years of experience in ESG analysis, Moody’s ESG has conducted more than 5,000 ESG assessments. Data collected and the agency’s knowledge of environmental, social and governance (ESG) and climate risks, as well as sustainable finance, can help companies achieve their sustainability goals.

Fitch Ratings Ltd. is a U.S.-based international credit rating agency. The ratings it awards enable investors to better assess risks.

Its ratings are based on several criteria, such as the nature of the debt held, the ability to cope with economic variations, or the capacity to carry out structural reforms. The agency currently rates debt issuers in over 90 countries.

Sustainable Fitch provides information, tools and data that have been entirely and exclusively designed to bring clarity to the ESG financial community.

The organization assesses a company’s activities from an environmental and social perspective, as well as the quality of its governance. This assessment determines the organization’s ESG rating.