ESG Products

Education programs and services funded through municipal and school bonds can create transformative educational opportunities and result in positive impacts that last generations. Case studies across the nation show remarkable results in addressing educational achievement gaps across income, race and other demographic indicators. Our Analytics Package helps in

• Quantifying and analyzing the outcomes of a project impacting the educational gaps in the municipality or community. 
• Measuring poverty levels in schools as a key determinant of achievement gaps, as well as per capita municipal spending on schools, teacher:pupil ratio, English proficiency of the household, etc.
• Identifying the right investment areas for reducing educational gaps.

2020 marks a racial reckoning in the US with multiple protests following incidents of police brutality against blacks. ESGAnalytics.AI has created a suite of metrics and analytics around racial justice issues utilizing prior empirical research. Our analyses delve deeper into existing environmental and social justice issues than traditional bond ratings. 

• Examine how this ESG issue helps you to invest in addressing the social issue of our time. 
• Use ESGAnalytics.Ai dashboards to identify the right investment areas for racial justice.
• Examine other ESG data points through the lens of race and get answers to questions like, “How do future city-plans dis-proportionately affect minority races?”

The digital divide denotes a lack of internet connectivity, computers, broadband access. COVID-19 has revealed the importance of digital connectivity in remote education. Many students across the country have been unable to participate in distance learning because they lack access to the internet and computers in their homes. 

Bonds can help bridge this digital divide as quickly and thoroughly as possible by building internet connectivity, support public libraries or community technology centers in low-income areas. Adult computer and technical job training can be a focus. This product  examines

• How the ESG perspective helps to identify the worst digital divide across rural and urban areas.
• Areas of ideal investments for addressing the digital divide.
• Key drivers of economic disparities surrounding technology usage and availability.

The evidence of the increasing effects of climate change on public health is growing. Using ESG metrics, you can examine how your investment would reduce impacts on public health caused by heat waves, air pollution, flooding, sea level rise, and emissions.  There is an increasing number of ways to invest money while keeping climate concerns in mind.

• Addressing environmental health means you are looking at the impacts of climate change and social vulnerability on public health. Investing in these bonds would not only address social gaps but also impact health access and equity in meaningful ways 
• Examine our integrated impact index that targets outcomes of heat on senior population; floods and sea level change on socially vulnerable population; air quality on asthma; lack of access to green spaces on obesity; etc.
• Use ESGAnalytics.Ai dashboards to identify the right investment areas for targeting generalized environmental health gaps.

Gender equality is a fundamental human right; gender inclusion and equality are necessary for a more sustainable world. Gender-driven bond investments can simultaneously address gender equality while generating investor returns. In the US, a female’s median income is around 94-97 % of that of the average male. Comparing black and brown women is starker. Prior research shows that companies with more substantial gender diversity perform better and that when women thrive, their families and communities thrive. 

• Use ESGAnalytics.Ai dashboards to identify the right investment areas to improve gender equality.
• Spot where gender equality is the best and the worst; identify solutions that may be useful to address this risk. 
• Advanced analytics: Use scenario modeling to examine what types of small business investments would lead to better outcomes. Advanced product: Use scenario modeling to examine what types of small business investments would lead to better outcomes. 

The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the U.S. an overall grade of D+ for infrastructure. The cost estimate for just making critical repairs is over $3.5 trillion.

• Examine everything from roads and bridges to water systems, ports, public transit, power grids, and schools in one municipality or region. 
• Advanced Analytics: Deep dive into specific issues. For example, about 30% of residents on the vast reservation of Navajo Nation, don’t have running water in their homes. 1 in 3 Navajo homes don’t have a tap or toilet. 

The distribution of wealth in the United States has grown increasingly unequal in the last five decades,  especially racial lines. The Congressional Budget Office has proposed to address the issue “by introducing universal “baby bonds,” paid to each newborn in the United States and preserved until the individual reaches young adulthood. By tying bond values to net worth rather than to income, the proposed scheme intends to better address the persistent disparities in net wealth”.

• In this bond dashboard, identify areas where the policy would considerably narrow wealth inequalities by race, occupation, education, and other factors.
• Identify areas with existing education and income profiles that could directly benefit from investment. 
• Quantifying and analyzing the outcomes of a project impacting the educational gaps in municipality or community. 
• Use ESGAnalytics.Ai dashboards to identify the right investment areas for reducing poverty.

A transition to a low carbon economy will not only address emissions but also increase employment, reduce energy expenditure, and change to renewable energy. Several cities, such as Boston, have set goals for reduction in emissions to become carbon-neutral by 2050. 

• Our low-carbon economy analytics look at the suitability of new on-shore wind power plants and re-powering existing plants (replacing old turbines with new ones), Photovoltaic equipment, and projects combining electricity generation with energy storage/or load management, biogas, hydro-electric power stations, and geothermal energy. 
• Advanced product: Use advanced analytics to examine socio-demographics to predict potential areas or municipalities ready for the transition based on the prior history of changes.

Community health is inextricably tied to environment, household income, employment, insurance. Improving community health has the potential to prevent disease and injury and improve individual and community economic and social prosperity. 

• Examine how the ESG perspective helps you to invest in addressing the complex score of health and wellness. Our metric includes three facets of health – health and wellness that includes over 100 variables such as premature death, infant mortality, HIV prevalence, and alcohol impaired death. 
• Our metric also includes 21 risk factors including unemployment, low birthweight, food insecurity, excessive drinking, smoking, poverty rates and residential segregation. 
• Use ESGAnalytics.Ai dashboards to identify the right investment areas for preserving health of communities in the COVID-19 landscape.

As the name implies, this product links marine and coastal interests of investors. The analytics focus on reducing risk related to marine environmental biodiversity, plastics, and coastal economics, including fishing, recreation, coastal real estate, and beaches. “Blue bonds” target marine projects, such as promoting biodiversity and supporting aquaculture.

• Examine our integrated impact index that targets risks such as sea level rise, coastal flooding, socially vulnerable population 
• Focus on climate change impact on marine biodiversity and commercial fisheries as well as beaches and property loss along the coasts
• Use ESGAnalytics.Ai dashboards to identify the right investment areas for targeting your blue ocean investment.

In the ongoing COVID-19 crises, there is mention of disproportionate deaths amongst African-Americans, and Hispanics as well as people with pre-existing health conditions. There is also mention of the front-line workers who have low wages and little health insurance. This current health and economic crisis provides a unique opportunity of aligning investments to address equity issues in health and wealth of the nation:

• Our research indicates that poverty, race, lack of education, and low-income housing shortages along with pre-existing health conditions can be highlighted to pick areas of social investment.
• Consider access to hospitals, healthcare, and health resources (per capita physicians, per capital hospital beds, per capita PPE)

Andrew Yang, in his presidential primary campaign, highlighted the loss of jobs due to automation and AI. A recent report from Deloitte found that 63 percent of company executives stated that they would automate as many jobs as possible to cut costs. Job losses from AI is an economical as well as an ethical issue. AI automation is a double-edged sword – it will bring new dangers, along with ample opportunities to reimagine a more sustainable future. 

• Use ESGAnalytics.Ai platform to analyze the potential impact of AI automation based on our estimated industrial sectors prone to a rise in automation.
• Analyze regions which will be impacted due to rising automation impacting both blue and white-collar (college-educated) jobs in the US.

Climate resilience is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to hazardous events, trends, or disturbances related to climate. Municipalities and regions which are better prepared are less likely to face dire consequences. Municipalities can improve their resiliency by assessing how climate change will create new, or alter current, climate-related risks, and to better cope with these risks. 

• Use ESGAnalytics.Ai dashboards to identify the existing as well as future climate change impacts on your community.
• Explore hazards (heat waves, fires, floods) to assess social vulnerability and risk – explore hurricane paths and their impact in the last 10 years.
• Prepare a list of priorities based on your risks – for example, a coastal municipality may plan to buy distressed properties, or convert land use (grow grasses or maintain marshes/wetland). A municipality may retrofit public housing or offer incentives for consumers to change their energy sources.