ESG Ratings and Rankings

ESG rating agencies assess multiple indicators especially on environmental, social and governance topics (ESG) and measure a company’s respective risk exposure as well as the performance on how these ESG risks are being managed. The methodologies used by the ESG rating agencies differ in particular with regard to which ESG topics are considered to be material for the assessment. 

The results published by these ESG rating agencies are commonly referred to as “ESG ratings”. Listed companies like Bayer are assessed by multiple ESG rating agencies - often publishing heterogenous results.

The basis for the ESG rating agencies’ assessments are Bayer’s publicly available Reports and Statements. We constantly screen the requirements of ESG rating agencies and aim to provide the respective data and information as part of our comprehensive reporting. Through this increased transparency on ESG topics and through targeted and constructive dialogue, we have made significant progress in recent years with what we consider to be the most important ESG rating agencies and ESG rankings. 

Besides the global and common ESG rating agencies’ surveys, many other inquiries on sustainability issues are performed, which are equally important as they take a deeper look into divisional and functional areas and their ESG performance. They may provide a dedicated “ESG scoring” or they perform comprehensive comparisons between peers and competitors for a certain field of activities.