KPIs for ESG - DVFA

III. ESGs (Topical Areas) and Key Performance Indicators
1. ESGs and KPIs
Topical areas are called ESGs. ESGs describe the general purpose of issues to be reported. ESGs serve as an
overarching description of the issue at hand, and explain the rationale behind the KPI.
ESGs are not the actual items to be reported. The actual item should be reported in the format of a KPI, i.e. the line
item to be reported.
The ESG serves as the denominator. KPIs need to be chosen from the list included and they represent the actual line
items to be reported.
2. General ESGs and sector-specific ESGs
General ESGs apply to all industries and should, hence, be areas which should be reported in the format of a KPI by all
corporates. Sector-specific ESG apply to specific industries only. General ESGs, however, are not more important than
sector-specific ESGs. Rather, in order to arrive at a representative and authentic reporting picture, corporates should
report on all issues within the section of the general ESGs by selecting those KPIs which represent the minimum
requirement. This is typically a set of 1 KPI reflecting an absolute value and 1 KPI reflecting a level of intensity.
KPIs for general ESGs should be disclosed by all industries. Sector-specific ESGs should be reported additionally to
depict issues relevant to the respective sector.
We have identified 10 general ESGs for Extra/Non-Financials, which – following the common usage – are structured
into E, S, G, and V (short for long-term viability).
Corporates should use each of the general KPIs, reporting those KPIs featured which represent the generally binding
minimum requirement.
3. Sector-specific ESGs and their respective KPIs
Thorough ESG reporting allows corporates to track and disclose those issues specific and peculiar to their sector.
Often, differences between industries surface not only at the level of KPIs, but also in the context of ESGs.
As the most important point of progress from version 1.2 to version 3.0 this paper provides sector-specific KPIs for all
subsectors following the Dow Jones Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB). In all, sector-specific KPIs were developed
for 114 subsectors.
Corporates should identify the subsectors in which they operate and report all ESGs – both general and specific –
identified and described for the specific subsector. Conglomerates should report for all subsectors in which they
operate.
4. Additional information
KPIs should be fairly self-explanatory and lend themselves to relatively easy integration with spreadsheet models.
This, if anything, is the raison d’être of our KPIs. However, we acknowledge that “numbers” are often reflections of
economic processes which do not allow deference to the underlying processes. Explanations and additional reference
may be helpful to put ESG data into context. Deliberately, however, we do not encourage corporates to report
narrative-style or prose text - except for KPNs (Key Performance Narratives) for all specified ESGs with a limited
number of words and providing answers to the question we pose.
We ask corporates to provide additional contextual information deemed necessary for the interpretation of the
respective KPI in annotations which should be linked to the KPI reported. The number and scope of annotations
should be kept minimal.
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