Castine, a New Jersey-based provider of cloud-based commission, trade and compensation reporting, and compliance management solutions, recently announced the release of ESG Tracker to help investment managers track all ESG related information collected in their corporate meetings and interactions to support SFDR and domestic reporting needs such as SASB.
About Castine’s ESG Tracker
Castine’s new ESG Tracker module is part of the firm’s Compliance Wheelhouse suite of solutions. ESG Tracker lets users track every interaction they are involved in with full reporting to inform clients about the depth and breadth of actionable ESG related information they are tracking. Each ESG-related meeting can be assigned a list of topic and sub-topics that were covered, whether they are derived from the UN’s SDGs, internal lists of topics, or related regulatory sources. Integral to ESG Tracker is the automation of the goals that are expected from each of these areas, as well as commitments and outcomes.
Investment management firms can now respond to a wide range of questions instantly, at an analyst or individual company level, as well as firm-wide. Being able to track interactions and outcomes helps demonstrate the ESG impact that the investment manager is uniquely uncovering, compared to the more generalized information collected by rating services. Reports can drill down to the details or can cut across interactions to see all areas that relate to a topic, sub-topic, or goal.
Liam McCarthy, Castine’s Head of Business Development explains the unique benefits of their new ESG Tracker module, saying, “The addition of full-court ESG reporting makes a powerful tool much closer to a strategic information source. Our AI engine assists users in categorizing their interactions within the structures that the firm has setup, so reports can be as accurate as possible with more objectivity as to how a firm and a meeting are scored.”
Our Take
Founded originally in 1982, Castine, LLC is a financial technology firm run by serial entrepreneur Robin Hodgkins. Prior to Castine LLC, the firm’s principals owned Cogent Consulting, a leading broker vote and commission management system sold to BNY Convergex in 2009, which is now owned and operated by Eze Software.
Castine, LLC provides a wide range of software tools for broker-dealers and asset management firms, including a suite of services to help make the operational demands of managing and tracking the compliance functions of sell-side and buy-side firms more efficient. The firm’s new ESG Tracker is the latest addition to Castine’s Compliance Wheelhouse solution.
In recent years, the market for ESG data, ratings and research has exploded due to changing regulatory reporting requirements for asset managers. However, the obvious conflicts associated with self-reported sustainability data, as well as holes in third-party ESG data, create a real opportunity for asset managers to collect proprietary ESG data and insights. A tool like Castine’s ESG Tracker enables asset managers to leverage the due diligence work currently undertaken by their own research teams to better comply with government regulations, fill in disclosure gaps, or build their own ESG evaluation models.