Recently S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that it would remove Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of the Adani Group, from its widely used sustainability indices.

About S&P Dow Jones Indices

• The index comprises global sustainability leaders as identified by S&P Global through its Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA).
• It represents the top 10% of the largest 2,500 companies in the S&P Global Broad Market Index (BMI) based on long-term economic, environmental and social criteria.

What is the Corporate Sustainability Assessment?

• It was founded in 1999 and serves as the foundation for the S&P Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
• It is now also the basis for many other Environment, Social responsibility, and (Corporate) Governance
• According to S&P Global, S&P acquired the CSA in 2019, which included the transition of the related ESG ratings and ESG benchmarking teams that now operate out of S&P Global Switzerland.
• It compares companies across 61 industries via questionnaires assessing a mix of 80-100 cross-industry and industry-specific questions.
• Based on their performance, companies receive scores ranging from 0 to 100.
• The percentile rankings for approximately 20 financially relevant sustainability criteria across economic, environmental and social dimensions.
• A growing number of companies participate in the assessment and use their results to benchmark their

What is Environment, Social responsibility, and (Corporate) Governance (ESG)?

• ESG is a framework that helps stakeholders understand how an organization is managing risks and opportunities related to environmental, social and governance criteria
• Over the last few years emerged as key themes for investors everywhere, including in India.
• The asset size of ESG funds — which incorporate environmental, social responsibility and corporate governance in their investing process — has ballooned in India,
• In 2021, the NSE launched NSE Prime, a framework that allows companies to submit to standards of corporate governance that are higher than those required by existing regulations.