Trucost and FactSet Sign Distribution Agreement

In a major step forward for investment analysts, the extensive environmental performance data available from Trucost will now be accessible for the first time over FactSet. This will allow investors to seamlessly embed environmental risk management into their everyday decision making, alongside traditional financial metrics.

The new partnership creates an integrated approach to analyzing the environmental performance and associated financial risk of all companies across the major investment indices, including carbon, water, waste, pollution and natural resource dependency.

The firms said that CalSTRS already use Trucost data over the FactSet network. Trucost has been helping the investment community to manage environmental risk for over 10 years. Its data has been used to analyse the environmental performance of funds worth over US$2.7trillion, working with clients such as Standard and Poor’s, UBS and Vanguard.

Joppe Coelingh Bennink, FactSet Sales, said, "FactSet strives to give our users access to information from premier firms, so this agreement fits perfectly within our tradition. Our partnership with Trucost provides FactSet users with a robust and comprehensive environmental data set to let them manage environmental risk alongside traditional financial metrics."

James Salo, senior vice president, Trucost said: “The current era of natural resource constraints and rising commodity prices combined with the trend towards national policy on ‘polluter pays’ regulations, make it increasingly important to enable mainstream investors to manage environmental risk. And it’s not just about managing risk. Following our work with Newsweek on their Green Ranking of America’s largest companies, we have seen outperformance of almost 10 percent among the top 100 companies versus the S&P500 over the last two years.”

Trucost CEO Richard Mattison said: “Environmental issues will both create winners and losers and change business models. Companies that are more environmentally efficient than their sector peers stand to achieve competitive advantage from reduced environmental costs, security of supply and positive customer perception. Providing Trucost data over the FactSet platform enables investors to identify risk and opportunity by integrating environmental metrics into their traditional holding and fund level analysis.”

About Trucost

Trucost (www.trucost.com) was established in 2000, to help companies, investors and governments understand and quantify the environmental impacts of business activities. Over the past 10 years Trucost has collected, researched and validated environmental data from organizations across the world. The result is the world’s most comprehensive data on corporate environmental impacts, covering Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), water, waste, pollutants and natural resource dependency.

This enables Trucost clients to access:

• The most efficient approach to measuring GHG emissions and wider environmental impacts across organizations, supply chains and investment portfolios;
• Clear identification of prioritized focus areas for managing environmental risk;
• Validation of source data, including completion of gaps in data which are not currently being tracked or reported on;
• Comparison of environmental performance against peers, sectors and investment benchmarks;
• The ability to create environmentally-oriented investment products.

About FactSet

FactSet (NYSE: FDS | NASDAQ: FDS) combines integrated financial information, analytical applications, and client service to enhance the workflow and productivity of the global investment community. The company, headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, was formed in 1978 and now conducts operations, along with its affiliates, from twenty-four locations worldwide, including Boston, New York, Chicago, San Mateo, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Dubai, and Sydney. For more information, follow us at www.twitter.com/factset.