The list of Barron’s 100 Most Sustainable Companies does not represent any investment strategy offered by Calvert or its affiliates. References to specific companies and securities in the list and accompanying article do not constitute a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold such securities, or an indication that Calvert or its affiliates have recommended such securities for any product or service based on the Barron’s methodology.
1. Calvert analyzed the 1000 largest publicly held companies, measured by market capitalization, incorporated and headquartered in the United States.
Excluding Real Estate Invest Trusts.
2. Each of these 1000 companies was rated on its demonstrated responsibility in 5 key stakeholder categories: shareholders, employees, customers, community, and planet.
- To calculate the ratings, Calvert considered more than 230 key performance indicators from seven primary vendors (CDP, ISS, MSCI, Sustainalytics, Thomson Reuters Asset4, and TruValue), supplemented by other data sources and Calvert Research, where relevant.
- This data was organized into 28 distinct topics, ranging from greenhouse gas emissions to workplace safety to workplace diversity. These 28 distinct topics sorted into the 5 key stakeholder categories (see attached detail).
- Each company received a rating of 0-100 in each stakeholder category, based on Calvert’s proprietary analysis and scoring methodology, which included taking an average of indicator-level scores over two years, if two years of data were available.
3. An overall rating for each company was calculated using a weighted average of the 5 key stakeholder categories.
- The weightings were based on Calvert’s assessment of the financial materiality of each stakeholder category within the company’s industry peer group.
- Calvert determined a unique weight for each category in each of more than 200 distinct industry peer groups.
4. In addition, to be considered among the 100 Most Sustainable Companies, a firm needed to be rated above the bottom quartile in all financially material stakeholder categories.
- In other words, a company’s poor performance with any key stakeholder group determined to be financially material disqualified that company from consideration.