Creditinfo Group, the leading global service provider for credit information and risk management solutions, has today announced the launch of VERA, a new environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) data platform. The pioneering platform will provide financial services with a standardised overview of their ESG performance, helping them comply with ESG regulation, and will also create a way for other organisations to easily provide sustainability data to the financial sector.
VERA is a centralised platform that congregates information from a range of sources, including data directly reported by companies as well as external sources such as media coverage, judicial information, and supply chain operations. The information is then automatically standardised to allow organisations across financial services to obtain a holistic overview of ESG factors and performance, and easily establish how best to comply with regulation.
Initially being rolled out in Iceland, with other regions to follow globally, the platform can also be used by non-financial corporations when conducting supplier assessments to determine the ESG performance of their supply chains, and to provide sustainability data in a standardised way to the financial sector, helping to attract investment.
Reynir Smári Atlason, Director of sustainability at Creditinfo said: “Providing ESG information to financial services strengthens the presence and engagement of financial institutions – especially in markets where sustainability data is generally limited. It’s not only an ethical decision but a practical one – various markets don’t have the regulations in place to hold companies to account, yet ESG data is needed if they’re going to attract investment through sustainable financing. We’re really proud of how this platform levels the playing field and makes this information accessible and digestible.”
The VERA platform comes on the heels of Creditinfo’s own sustainability policy as the next step in its overall ESG strategy. Creditinfo’s aim to facilitate better decision making in financial services and enable greater access to finance for underserved SMEs, companies and individuals without credit ratings means it plays a vital role in social sustainability globally, and transparency in its environmental and social dealings across its regions must be a fundamental part of this. The next step will see the company publish its inaugural sustainability report evaluating performance areas against its sustainability policy in 2023.
Paul Randall, CEO at Creditinfo said: “Our ESG data platform and sustainability policy are just the first steps in understanding and addressing our wider external impact and helping others to do the same. Not only do we need to make sure we comply with regulation in this area, but the responsibility also lies with individual companies to be proactive when it comes to innovating in a sustainable and responsible way. We’re ready to lead by example here and I’m very excited by our ESG data platform and sustainability policy to ensure Creditinfo and other financial services are on track and compliant with regulation.”
Creditinfo’s sustainability policy can be found in full here.
