Operate Sustainably
Our environment intro copy
Sustainability of our environment is a top priority. We have taken actions through our day-to-day operations to implement initiatives to reduce our impact on the environment. We remain committed to continuing to develop, adopt and monitor climate and carbon-related strategies to even further reduce our environmental footprint.
Given our efforts to limit our environmental impact, we have developed the following Environmental Policy. MSCI monitors the policy through an environmental management system.
MSCI’s environmental policy outlines the environmental principles that help guide our company’s strategic and operational business decisions. This policy underscores our commitment to limiting our environmental impact over time and encouraging our stakeholders to do the same. This policy will be revisited and refreshed as our environmental priorities evolve and we continue to achieve higher levels of corporate environmental stewardship.
MSCI’s Environmental Policy is detailed below
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MSCI Environmental Policy
Objective Statement
MSCI’s environmental policy outlines the environmental principles that help guide our company’s strategic and operational business decisions. This policy underscores our commitment to limiting our environmental impact over time and encouraging our stakeholders to do the same. This policy will be revisited and refreshed as our environmental priorities evolve and we continue to achieve higher levels of corporate environmental stewardship.
Executive Statement
The world is rapidly evolving due to dramatic and significant shifts in climate change, social attitudes, institutional governance and technological innovation. For our clients, holding long term investments requires identifying, understanding and managing long term financial risks and opportunities. We believe climate change will become one of the most important investment risk factors over the long term. What was once perceived as a relatively distant concern has become an imminent and increasingly urgent threat. As we reach this inflexion point, investors are now publicly expressing a desire to take action. Global investors need to incorporate this new reality into their investment portfolios as we believe the convergence of these seismic shifts will lead to a large-scale reallocation of capital over the decades to come.
As a leader in Environmental, Social and Governance research and products, we believe it is important to take meaningful steps toward integrating environmental principles into our business strategy. While our environmental impact as a financial services company is relatively small and comes mostly from the employee office buildings, and from our data centers, we remain committed to limiting our environmental impact. Our business strategy and the outcomes anticipated by environmentally responsible behaviors are strongly aligned. In order to further assess and develop our environmental impact strategy and to enhance our transparency towards our clients, shareholders and employees, we submitted our first full CDP disclosure in 2019
This vision will be accomplished with support from our firm’s leadership and stakeholders, and by creating internal policies and frameworks that guide our employees toward prioritizing the environmental impact when making business decisions. Our commitment to address these issues is inspired by our investors, our employees, our clients and the vested interest in the communities in which we operate.
Our Principles
Lead our industry peers by continuing to define environmental stewardship in the realm of ESG investing. Our ESG products and services enable investors to measure environmental risks and opportunities that companies face, to incorporate those into their investment decisions, and to support a transition to a low carbon economy. By continuing to invest in our environmental data sets, we make environmental impact a part our business strategy.
- Provide low-carbon, fossil fuel-free and other environmental investment data, tools and indexes to our clients to enable them to build and implement their investment strategies to address environmental and climate-related issues.
Conserve materials and natural resources and reduce waste generated by our global operations. We will take a comprehensive approach, from procurement to disposal, to reducing waste across our global operations, while navigating various geographic constraints to procuring, reusing, reducing, recycling, and composting. We will create policies that empower our staff to procure reusable or recyclable office products.
- Eliminate single-use plastic items and other kitchen disposables (items not recyclable or washable) in offices and to the extent possible at our external marketing and client events.
- Prioritize partnerships with product suppliers and vendors that procure products with lower environmental impacts and that reduce landfill waste.
- Introduce principles of a circular economy - aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources across our procurement and disposal decisions.
Continually improve our environmental performance and our ability to demonstrate measurable progress towards managing relevant environmental issues. By creating a culture of transparency and knowledge sharing, we strive to better understand measurable environmental outcomes of our operations and to multiply the opportunities for collaboration with others on reducing our overall environmental impact.
- Introduce environmental performance criteria (metrics) and establish an environmental management system to measure performance.
- Encourage supplier adherence to our established Supplier Code of Conduct including as it relates to environmental performance.
- Voluntarily publish progress on environmental issues in a format that is easily accessible to and understood by all stakeholders.
Reduce our demand for carbon intensive energy products and services over time. We will prioritize energy efficiency in our facilities, increase the share of renewable energy used to power operations, and reduce work-related travel wherever possible. We will partner with suppliers to make sustainable and resilient energy choices that lower our operational costs and reduce our carbon footprint.
- Lower energy consumption of office facilities by electing to lease office space in buildings that have achieved LEED or other equivalent green building certifications.
- Provide technology alternatives such as virtual meetings which serve as an alternative to business travel.
- Wherever possible, procure reliable renewable energy to power our global operations
Empower our employees to develop and implement meaningful initiatives, which create positive environmental impact that extends to the communities in which we live, work, and play.
- Support an employee-driven resource group, which meets regularly to discuss and implement environmental initiatives and define how these initiatives align with our environmental policy.
- Help employees contribute to our environmental initiatives by creating channels where they can share their ideas and facilitate employee-led sustainability programs.
- Localize our efforts to improve the environment in our communities by sharing knowledge and resources.
We strive to comply with relevant environmental regulations as a baseline for our operations.
Assess the impacts that climate change could have on our business model, proactively mitigate climate-related business risks, and invest in enhancing climate-related business opportunities. By integrating assessment and management of climate-related risks and opportunities within our enterprise risk management framework, we can minimize our exposure to direct impacts of climate change. By investing in climate-related business opportunities, we position ourselves to benefit from the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Endeavor to consider evolving environmental considerations while making our business decisions through this policy. Continually assess and report out how this policy is being implemented throughout our organization and iterate on established principles when necessary.
Our environment copy part 1
Our business strategy and the outcomes anticipated by environmentally responsible behaviors are strongly aligned. In order to further assess and develop our environmental impact strategy and to enhance our transparency towards our clients, shareholders and employees, we submitted our first full CDP disclosure in 2019 and received a grade of B on the submission. In our 2020 filing, we included employee commute, transmission and distribution losses and one category of purchased goods and services (furniture) to what we reported and verified for Scope 3 emissions. In 2020, we received a grade of B similar to 2019, while the average grade for our regional and sector peers decreased from C to D.
CDP, formerly Carbon Disclosure Project, runs a global disclosure system which enables investors, companies, cities, states and regions to measure and manage their environmental impacts.
To help MSCI in its ongoing efforts to build upon the processes and frameworks for managing climate-related risks and opportunities and improving its communications around these efforts, MSCI conducted a climate-related scenario analysis (in alignment with the Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures Recommendations) in early 2019.
In 2020, we published our TCFD report, which provides climate-related financial disclosure that aligns with the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and aims to provide greater transparency regarding our approach to sustainability, facilitate sustainable investing by the investment community and help reduce our own long-term financial risks related to climate change.
Carbon Emissions Metrics and Targets
Using science-based target methodologies, we plan to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions by 50% by 2035 and our Scope 3 emissions by 20% by 2035, starting in 2019. Ways to achieve those targets include implementing energy-efficiency measures, increasing the use of renewables, shrinking employee commutes to their offices and business travel and reducing our footprint throughout the supply chain. Assuming we meet our carbon-reduction targets, our activities will contribute to a temperature rise below 2°C by 2100 , which is aligned with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
Over the last several years, we have focused on improving our disclosures around GHG emissions associated with our business operations. Staying true to that commitment, in 2020 we expanded the coverage of our emissions to account for all our relevant Scope 3 emissions. The table below shows the year-over-year change in Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
Our environment copy - part 2
MSCI Green House Gas Emissions in Metric Tons C02e | |||
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | |
| Scope 1 | 210.00 | 418.60 | 272.10 |
| Scope 2- Location Based | 8,577.56 | 8,391.00 | 7,392.30 |
| Scope 2 - Market Based | 3,030.31 | 5,246.0 | 4,089.00 |
| Scope 3 - Business Travel | Not evaluated | 3,716.80 | 4,416.50 |
| Scope 3 – Employee Commute | Not evaluated | Not evaluated | 2,567.60 |
| Scope 3 – Purchased Goods and Services/Category Furniture | Not evaluated | Not evaluated | 411.50 |
| Scope 3 – Transmission and Distribution Losses | Not evaluated | Evaluated but not verified | 608.60 |
| Scope 3 – Waste | Not evaluated | Not evaluated | 676.00 |
2017 amounts shown were estimated utilizing an intensity-based approach. 2018 and 2019 amounts are based on actual energy consumption. Business travel includes all employees' air, rail and auto rental. All reported 2018 and 2019 amounts (except for waste) were verified by POINT380, an independently owned and operated consulting and software services company that specializes in technical analysis and innovation for efficiency and renewable resources. In their opinion, the inventory is presented fairly in accordance with (1) ISO 14064-1 Specification with guidance at the organization level for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals, and (2) The Climate Registry General Reporting Protocol. 2018 numbers were reevaluated based on updated methodology and reverified by POINT380. We calculated our Scope 3 emissions for waste and are reporting it but did not have that amount verified this year.
Environmental Considerations
Our offices and datacenters
92% of our global staff are in offices with LEED, BREEAM or equivalent green building recognition. Furniture with 70% to 90% recycled materials is used in all of our new and remodeled offices. The vendor has the highest recycled content on the market with 100% of fixtures and furniture certified to a holistic environmental product standard. We have 100% of MSCI offices participating in landlord-managed and/or local recycling programs.
Our offices in Berkeley, Boston, Budapest, Chicago, Dubai, Frankfurt, Manila, Mumbai, New York, Norman, San Francisco, Seoul and Toronto are LEED-certified, and our London and Paris offices are BREEAM-certified. Our offices in Monterrey, Singapore and Tokyo are in buildings which have received local awards for their environmental design and green building technology. We have motion sensors and automated controls for lighting in offices which represent 95% of our global staff. Importantly, when selecting office locations, we also take into consideration the potential impact of climate-related risks, including exposure to extreme changes in temperature and flooding risk.
MSCI takes various environmental factors, such as existence of landlord-driven or local recycling initiatives, use of sustainable and energy-efficient materials and control systems enabling the efficient power use, and public transport availability into consideration as part of our new office acquisition approach, and we implement our own office programs for low environmental impact product use as well. MSCI has personnel whose roles include coordination of activities to support our corporate environmental and carbon disclosure activities, and to oversee our global office practices and standards to ensure that we act in a consistent and environmentally conscious manner throughout our offices.
Three of MSCI’s principal data centers are powered by 100% renewable energy. As of October 2020, approximately 60% of the electricity we purchase to power our datacenters and our offices comes from renewable sources.
MSCI Datacenter Location
| Region | Country | City | State (if applicable) |
| Datacenter | |||
| America | USA | Las Vegas | Nevada |
| Europe | Switzerland | Geneva | |
| Microsoft Azure Location | |||
| North Europe | Ireland | Dublin | |
| Japan East | Japan | Saitama | |
| West Europe | Netherlands | Amsterdam | |
| South East Asia | Singapore | Singapore | |
| East US | USA | TBD | Virginia |
| East US 2 | USA | Boydton | Virginia |
| West US | USA | Fresno | California |
| West US 2 | USA | Quincy | Washington |
Energy efficiency and sustainable working practices
While we do not believe that our business model has substantive risks related to climate change, we are aware of and consider the physical risks and impact of climate change on costs of travel, facilities and production resulting from the rising costs of resources.
We leverage technology to automate and streamline labor-intensive processes and promote virtual employee and client engagement, reducing travel to enhance the scalability, sustainability, and long-term efficiencies of our business.
MSCI significantly reduces our environmental impact linked to physical travel through business travel policies that encourage employees to plan trips well in advance, to bundle short duration trips into fewer longer term trips and to take fewer physical trips by holding virtual meetings supported by conferencing technologies. MSCI currently averages over 75,000 virtual meetings monthly. In addition, we seek to reduce paper usage, for example by using electronic documents rather than paper and minimizing the volume of our printing. Our estimated paper usage was 1.5 million pages in 2020, down from 5.5 million pages in 2019.
As a leader in ESG research and applications, MSCI is also committed to do its part to promote sustainability and to reduce consumption.
MSCI has implemented processes across our offices to eliminate single-use plastic items, including water bottles, cutlery, straws, coffee stirrers and other disposable items. We participate in recycling programs and e-waste disposal. Further, employees in several of our major offices have set up local employee-driven committees that engage in a variety of initiatives, including promoting sustainable waste management and working practices, educating and increasing awareness of key environmental issues and challenges facing those offices, and running initiatives to engage employees on local environmental matters.
Business continuity, disaster recovery and risk management
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, our first priority has been to ensure the health, safety and well-being of our employees and clients. MSCI has taken prudent steps to ensure a healthy and productive working environment including:
- Reinforcing our infrastructure to support a virtual workforce
- Converting client events to virtual experiences
- Eliminating business travel
All MSCI staff have been enabled and are fully supported by the firm to work remotely.
MSCI is cognizant of inherent climate-related risks which have the potential to have a substantive impact on our business. We operate a multi-disciplinary company-wide process for identification, assessment and management of risks through our Enterprise Risk Management program, which is overseen by the Enterprise Risk Oversight Committee and regularly reports to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors.
MSCI’s risks are assessed and prioritized using a standardized assessment framework which considers the likelihood of a range of potential impacts. Climate change impact is considered as part of our ongoing review of our business continuity plans. MSCI’s Crisis Management Team and Technology Service Operations Service Management Team are responsible for all aspects of disaster recovery response efforts on a local, regional or global basis, as applicable. The Business Resiliency team within IT Risk develops, implements, and tests technology systems to support MSCI’s business continuity plans. Our Head of IT Risk reports to the Audit Committee on MSCI’s business continuity and IT disaster recovery plans designed to mitigate the impact of climate-related and other disruptions.
We have a comprehensive business continuity policy, along with disaster recovery plans, aimed at mitigating the potential impacts of an incident or disaster, including extreme weather events and natural disasters, such that facilities, systems and staff can continue to function, and business disruptions are avoided or kept to a minimum.
We have a comprehensive business continuity policy, along with disaster recovery plans, aimed at mitigating the potential impacts of an incident or disaster, including extreme weather events and natural disasters, such that facilities, systems and staff can continue to function, and business disruptions are avoided or kept to a minimum.Access more information on our security awareness program and program of information security to secure data, systems and services.
Our Suppliers
MSCI’s commitment to the environment extends beyond our company. Our supply chain must:
- implement appropriate standards to minimize harm to the environment caused by their activities, and comply with applicable environmental laws, regulations and standards;
- handle waste in a responsible manner;
- recycle material;
- avoid use of scarce natural resources.
For further details see our Supplier Code of Conduct, which applies to all of our suppliers.