Financial information services provider Fitch Group announced today the launch of Sustainable Fitch, its new sustainability-focused analytics ecosystem, with the introduction of new ESG ratings products targeting fixed income investment products.

The new ESG ratings aim to provide assessments of ESG performance at the entity, instrument, and ESG framework level. Ratings coverage will initially be focused on the ESG-labelled market, including green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds, with plans to expand over the entire fixed-income investable universe.

Paul Taylor, CEO, Fitch Group, said:

“We have spent a lot of time assessing what is currently available in the market, listening to and gathering feedback from investors and other market participants. Our new ESG Ratings product is in direct response to what the market is asking for, as was the case in 2019 when we created our ESG Relevance Scores with investors in mind.”

Sustainable Fitch has created detailed reports and datasets, enabling cross-comparisons across industries, entities and instruments. The ESG ratings are presented on a scale ranging from 1 (“Excellent”) to 5 (“Poor”), and are supported by subgrades and detailed underlying datasets, allowing for granular comparative analysis. The reports also include qualitative commentary and additional information on instrument relevance and alignment with major standards and taxonomies.

Sustainable Fitch will be headed by Andrew Steel, Managing Director, Global Group Head of Sustainable Finance.

Steel said:

“Investors want transparent, cross comparable ESG ratings that look beyond labelling or targets to assess ESG fundamentals. Sustainable Fitch will provide investors with best-in-class ESG Ratings, supported by data and analysis backed by the key tenets of consistency, comparability, coverage and granularity.”