Leading ESG research and ratings provider Sustainalytics announced today that it is making its high level ESG risk ratings for over 4,000 public companies available on its website.

The move marks a significant milestone for the company, which was acquired earlier this month by investment research firm Morningstar. Prior to today’s announcement, Sustainalytics ratings were available only to subscribers of the company’s services, or through third party services such as Yahoo! Finance.

Sustainalytics said that by making its ratings data easily and accessible, today’s announcement will enable all financial market stakeholders, including institutional asset managers, pension plan sponsors, wealth advisors and retail investors, to have visibility into the material ESG risks within companies. The company also pointed out benefits for corporate managers, including investor relations officers, corporate responsibility officers and other executives, who will access to this information helpful in benchmarking their own companies’ performance relative to peers from an ESG perspective.

Sustainalytics’ Executive Vice President of Marketing, Cheryl Gustitus said:

“Sustainalytics has long been committed to transparency. We have always appreciated the fact that access to information results in greater understanding and more informed decision-making by all stakeholders. By making our industry-leading ESG Risk Ratings available to all interested stakeholders in a simplified online format, we can help to bring clarity and comparability of ESG considerations to audiences across the investment ecosystem.”

Sustainalytics’ ESG Risk Ratings measure company-level ESG risk by combining the concepts of management and exposure to arrive at an overall quantitative rating which is expressed across a risk spectrum of severe, high, medium, low or negligible. By providing an absolute measure for assessing company ESG risk, Sustainalytics’ Ratings are comparable for companies in different industries.