The DJSI questionnaire “Corporate Sustainability Assessment” has now been shared with all invited companies.
What is the DJSI questionnaire?
The DJSI, or Dow Jones Sustainability Index, is a stock exchanges index, which includes Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria into the ranking.
In order to be part of the DJSI, invited stock listed companies need to fill a questionnaire, called the Corporate Sustainability Assessment. Over 3,400 companies are invited every year, to answer between 80 to 120 industry specific questions.
The results are then analyzed by RobecoSAM, an investment specialist focused exclusively on Sustainability Investing. Based on such results, and on financial data, the indices are composed.
More precisely, RobecoSAM states that: “This data, combined with sustainability and risk/return objectives of investors, is used to produce our family of indices, including our global indices, sub-indices, and innovative products like the multi-factor smart-beta ESG indices. Our ESG equity indices are based on RobecoSAM’s proprietary ESG database, covering over 600 ESG indicators for over 4,000 global companies.”[1]
Such indices include DJSI World, DJSI North Amercia, DJSI Europe, DJSI Asia Pacific, DJSI Korea, DJSI Emerging Markets, DJSI Australia, DJSI Chile. Of note, DJSI World tracks the performance of the top 10% of the 2,500 largest companies in the S&P Global Broad Market IndexSM that leads the field in terms of sustainability, while DJSI Europe tracks the performance of the top 20% of the 600 largest European companies in the S&P Global Broad Market IndexSM that leads the field in terms of sustainability.[2]
What is the Corporate Sustainability Assessment?
It is a questionnaire that the companies need to fill in, to be then rated by RobecoSAM. Only the best are part of the DJSI indices afterwards.
The questionnaire is customized for 60 industries, over 3 dimensions: Economic, Environment and Social. Such questions aim at finding out the measures of the companies, if the firm discloses policies and reports on the topics, what are the KPIs and so on.
The questions activated depend on the sector/industry. The maximum score for each question is 100. The various answer options within a question are scored individually or in combination, with the total sum resulting in a maximum of 100 points.
Such questionnaire is also weighted. You can read the methodology for an overview on the weighting rules.
What are the next steps?
- Start of online questionnaire process: March 30, 2017
- Deadline for submitting answers to the questionnaire: May 30, 2017
- Announcement of new DJSI members (e.g. if the responded companies made it to the index): September 7, 2017
What are the resources at your disposal?
- A methodology briefing of RobecoSAM: http://www.robecosam.com/images/CSA_2016_Annual_Scoring_Methodology_Review.pdf
- The list of invited companies, to check if you were invited: http://www.robecosam.com/images/20160209_DJSI_Invited_Universe_2017.xlsx
- Sample questionnaires http://www.robecosam.com/images/sample-questionnaire-diversified-consumer-services.pdf ; http://www.robecosam.com/images/sample-questionnaire-metals-and-mining.pdf
DJSI questionnaire support
DFGE is offering to help you filling the DJSI questionnaire with our Sustainability Intelligence model & solutions. We reuse data from other standards, to minimize the impact from your side. Consult our rankings page for more details, or directly contact us at
Good luck to all responding companies !
[1] http://www.sustainability-indices.com/
[2] http://www.robecosam.com/en/sustainability-insights/about-sustainability/corporate-sustainability-assessment/invited-universe.jsp
