Element22 – a leading management consulting and solutions provider committed to modernising data, data management and analytics for the investment industry – answered investors’ calls for transparency by partnering with BBD to design and develop the ESGi platform. The platform is a technology solution that sources attested, trusted ESG data for the investment industry.
Objectives
- Design the system as an authoritative source
- Request, publish, challenge and amend ESG data in real-time
- Build trust through transparent, consistent business rules
- Assist in creating a community (as any firm can share their ESG data through the platform)
- Develop a system to support Sustainable Finance Disclosure (SFDR)
Benefits
- Trusted ESG reporting
- Data grouped into portfolios for ease of use
- Regulation-specific modelling, unambiguous data definitions and user-configurable models
- Multiple ESG use case reporting
Overview of the solution
Element22 explicitly developed the ESGi platform to support sustainable finance disclosure as an authoritative source with the objectives of requesting, publishing and challenging ESG data – which users can amend in real-time. As such, the platform builds trust through transparent, consistent business rules and creates a community for firms to share their ESG data. BBD helped extend and optimise the system according to its evolving needs and requirements, resulting in a highly scalable and configurable application that can address any changes to regulation at a glance. BBD designed the platform to be scalable, with a transparent rules engine to support each type of regulatory reporting – Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), Swap Data Repository (SDR), and Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). By completing a deep requirements analysis for each new regulation or report, BBD identified field overlaps or differences, which drive aggregation rules and fill reporting templates. The rules also set out the input data attributes to be collected, resulting in data integrity.
ESG data on third parties can be collected via ESGi in three ways:
- Through direct invite and digital data capture
- Using automation technology
- By allowing financial institutions to upload any existing data collected about a company
To meet the client’s requirements, the ESGi Platform aims to collect ESG data at its most atomic level. No blind index scores or ratings are produced on the platform; instead, it outputs clearly defined digitised data, with separation between sources, the ability to flag any estimated values, and evidence to back up the data. Element22 drives trust in ESG data through transparency since the application identifies the data source via a link to a published document.
Unique to the ESGi platform, all system functionality is supported by secure APIs, including the ability to notify all relevant parties that data has been changed and updated. Direct sourcing of ESG data from third parties allows the implementation of a direct channel so that missing data can be requested directly and challenged if it appears incorrect. Any requests or changes made to the data are updated in real-time, triggering notifications.
Approach
BBD began with an in-depth analysis of the existing PoC solution, identified gaps in functionality and technology, and then sourced the services of our in-house user experience/user interface (UX/UI) team to help redesign the application to be more intuitive and user friendly.
A highly scalable solution was delivered through BBD’s Agile and distributed development approach. Key capabilities and processes include:
- Dynamic rules engine for calculations
- Reporting functionality to investment firms
- Automatic sourcing of ESG data into the platform
- Portfolio management
The application is fully configurable to handle any changes in regulation and financial calculations based on input.
Impact of BBD’s partnership
BBD’s relationship with Element22 is one of a technical partnership but also as a key trusted advisor. BBD provided a highly scalable and configurable application that can address future changes to regulation and allow for future technological agility. The partnership resulted in the development of their innovative ESGi application and created a scalable basis for furthering Element22’s ESG platform ambitions.
The ESGi solution was implemented fully in the AWS cloud. BBD’s AWS Advanced Services Partner status with a dedicated cloud enablement team ensured that industry best practices and standards were adhered to.
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