Today, the International Finance Corporation, the private arm of the World Bank, awarded a $500,000 grant to CRISIL, Standard & Poor's, and KLD; and to Trucost and CLSA, the winners of its research competition "Capturing Value." The competition aims to provide investors in emerging market equities with better research on companies' environmental, social, and corporate governance performance and facilitate high-quality, long-term investment in emerging markets from pension funds and other investors worldwide.

In choosing the winners, IFC paid particular attention to the ability of their projects to catalyze market development and capacity to raise the level of environmental, social, and corporate governance performance. IFC also focused on analytical tools that would bring a broad range of investors into the debate.

Rachel Kyte, Director of IFC's Environment and Social Development Department, said, "Through this seed funding we are hoping to break a chicken-and-egg situation where investors will not invest in emerging markets for lack of information, and research providers will not enter the market for lack of demand. The object of the competition is to lead the market and to provide tools to a mainstream investment audience."

Subir Gokarn, Executive Director and Chief Economist of CRISIL, said, "In our view, increased transparency in emerging market companies in environmental and socially responsible behavior and governance can act as a strong incentive for investors. They often view performance on those dimensions as a proxy for management quality. In creating an environmental, social, and corporate governance index of Indian companies, our goal is to develop a new market instrument that aligns investor and public interest and that can be replicated in other emerging markets."

Simon Thomas, Chief Executive of Trucost, said, "It is hugely important that the environmental costs associated with growth in emerging economies are realized, and the provision of good-quality quantitative data means this can be achieved. Trucost will use its expertise in measuring environmental impacts and for the first time create a database of information on the environmental consequences of production in emerging economy companies."

About the competition
In April 2006, IFC invited a wide range of organizations, including research houses, rating firms, index providers, and others, to compete for a $500,000 research grant. The winning proposal was selected by IFC and a six-person panel of independent experts drawn from the UN Global Compact, First State Investments, the World Resources Institute, the World Federation of Exchanges, the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia, and OnValues.

The funding for Capturing Value is provided by IFC and the governments of Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.  The mandate for the initiative is to contribute to private sector development and poverty alleviation by facilitating environmental and social best practice in the private financial sector.