New York – Yesterday, a press release from The Corporate Library-a governance firm–stated that the firm had entered into a partnership with Trucost-an environmental research firm. In an era of full service extra-financial research, the partnership makes eminent sense. Under the arrangement, The Corporate Library will supply two of Trucost’s products, including the environmental impact ratio and a “company briefing” which provides an overall assessment of the environmental impact of a corporation’s products as well as a mapping of this impact on the firm’s financial performance. In addition, the report includes regulatory actions that affect the company profiled.
The Corporate Library has several services aimed at the financial services market. The main service is the Board Analyst product, which assigns governance ratings to companies , provides governance screening tools, and identifies firms that have potential governance or shareholder litigation risks.
The partnership has two key benefits. First, is the obvious product impact, where the firms’ products and services, offered together, have greater informational content than each separately. Second, is the marketing aspect of the new product suite which will leverage off of The Corporate Library’s strength in North America and Trucost’s strength in Europe.
It seems clear that the two services are stronger together than they are apart. Still, we are not sure whether the services will eventually dovetail into a cohesive screening tool, or whether they will remain as separate filters.
We include the press release below:
THE CORPORATE LIBRARY AND TRUCOST PARTNER TO PROVIDE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE RISK AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Maine; May 6, 2009 – The Corporate Library, the leading independent source for corporate governance research and risk analysis, today announced it has entered into a partnership with Trucost, the world’s leading environmental data provider, to provide institutional investors with in-depth analysis of corporate environmental performance and corporate governance risk.
“The Corporate Library has always been concerned with companies’ environmental impacts as they relate to corporate governance risk,” said The Corporate Library’s Chief Executive Officer Richard A. Bennett. “Our partnership with Trucost allows us to help our investor and other clients to understand corporate risk better by providing them with insightful and comprehensive environmental performance research.”
The Corporate Library will offer clients two of Trucost’s products: the environmental impact ratio which provides a measure of a company’s environmental efficiency; and the company briefing which provides a detailed overview of a company’s environmental impacts, measured in quantity as well as financial terms, in order to relate environmental performance to financial performance.
The addition of Trucost’s products covering 4,500 of the largest companies worldwide will contribute to The Corporate Library’s commitment to global coverage.
“The partnership enables us to offer The Corporate Library’s clients a comprehensive understanding of the environmental performance of companies across the investment universe.” said Simon Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of Trucost. “This expansion of our North American coverage reinforces Trucost’s reputation as a global leader in environmental data provision.”
About The Corporate Library
Now celebrating its tenth year, The Corporate Library is an independent research firm focused on the U.S. and Canadian public market which offers corporate governance information products, research services and data products. It produces the definitive ratings of U.S. corporate boards of directors, allowing businesses that subscribe to the service to evaluate governance as an element of investment and other risk. Additional information can be found at http://www.thecorporatelibrary.com/.
About Trucost
Trucost Plc is a world-leading environmental data organisation which helps companies and investors understand the environmental impacts of business activities. Trucost provides data and analysis on company emissions and natural resource usage in financial as well as quantity terms to help investors, fund managers and analysts understand how environmental issues could affect companies’ future earnings. Institutional investors use the information to assess the carbon or environmental footprints of their portfolios, to identify differences in performance, address environmental risks and create financial products with lower carbon or environmental impacts. Trucost tracks data on the environmental impacts and disclosures of over 4,500 companies and has the world’s largest record of greenhouse gas emissions. http://www.trucost.com/.
Contact:
Cheri Grimmett
Media Relations, The Corporate Library
207 553-5604