Last month geospatial data and analysis firm RS Metrics announced that it was making its real-time asset-level ESG and ECP data and metrics in its ESGSignals® product available via the Google Cloud Marketplace.
RS Metrics Latest Data Distribution Deal
Last month, geospatial analysis firm RSMetrics announced that it is making over 100 asset-level environmental, social, governance (ESG), and environmental, climate, physical (ECP) risk metrics accessible in real-time through the launch of ESGSignals® on Google Cloud Marketplace.
ESGSignals® is a geospatial analytics platform for providing asset-level, objective, verifiable and comparable environmental and climate physical risk data and metrics for companies. The physical assets are mapped back to its ownership, asset type, sector, country etc. making it possible to conduct; (i) risk profile comparisons for assets with similar attributes, (ii) company, industry, sector level risk evaluation, (iii) baselining and benchmarking, (iv) portfolio screening, monitoring and engagement, and more.
Bob Herz, RS Metrics Senior Advisor, Board Member of the Value Reporting Foundation, which oversees the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and former Chair of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) explains this move saying, “The granularity offered by RS Metrics through Google Cloud Marketplace will help stakeholders understand the ESG performance of these assets and their exposure to environmental, climate and physical risk, for business development and continuity planning.
In a recent interview Maneesh Sagar, Chairman and CEO of RSMetrics was asked about the Google initiative, and why it matters to financial institutions. He said, “We have been focused on developing ESGSignals® and this partnership with Google Cloud marks a major milestone in democratizing ECP data by offering ESGSignals® as a SaaS, with rapid configuration by Google Cloud developers. This allows end users to create rapidly deployable dashboards and applications for financial services, rating agencies, assurance companies, and corporates and provide here-to unavailable ECP insights.”
Our Take
Shortly after founding in 2009 as Remote Sensing Metrics, the firm launched its first product, a car count service. After receiving a capital infusion in 2017, the head of venture capital firm Thynk Ventures, Maneesh Sagar, became Chairman and CEO of the firm — the third CEO in three years. Sagar, who was a commodities trader earlier in his career, initially focused the firm on the commodities sector. Since then, RSMetrics has rounded out its product offering in ESG, climate and physical risk, industrials, and commercial real estate.
The deal to distribute ESGSignals® data via the Google Cloud Marketplace makes sense for a couple of reasons. First, Google’s data marketplace is one of the more popular places for clients to access a wide range of data (AWS and Snowflake being two other widely used cloud-based marketplaces). In addition, Google offers a robust set of data and analytic tools that make it easier for clients to use the ESGSignals® data, such as BigQuery, Looker Studio, Vertex AI Workbench, and Cloud Run. Lastly, Google’s vast development resources have enabled RSMetrics to launch new data and AI solutions for mutual customers.
In the past few years, a large number of data providers have chosen to distribute their data via cloud-based marketplaces like Google Cloud Marketplace, Snowflake or AWS. This trend is due in part to the growing adoption of cloud technology by both sell-side and buy-side firms. However, it is also due to the lower costs and higher reliability that cloud-based data delivery can offer to data vendors when compared to traditional data delivery approaches. We suspect that the move to cloud-based data delivery solutions will only gather speed in the coming years as the benefits become more widely accepted.