Our sustainability strategy, shaped by material nonfinancial topics most relevant to stakeholders and our business, was updated in 2022, following its initial creation in 2020. The assessment considered emerging sustainability trends, enhanced topic definitions, and analyzed the impact of each topic on our value chain, considering both upstream and downstream factors. The assessment validated our initial assumptions and topic prioritization from 2020, emphasizing business imperatives such as Business Ethics, Professional Integrity, and Risk Assessment and Management.
The inputs for the refreshed assessment included:
Research on peers and emerging industry trends since 2020.
Analysis of ESG ratings reports and international sustainability frameworks (e.g., SASB, GRI, TCFD, WEF and SDGs).
Interviews and surveys collected from over 2,000 internal and external stakeholders, including members of our Board of Directors, Executive Leadership Team and the global workforce, as well as select customers, stockholders, suppliers and policy influencers.
Topic
Definition
Board composition
Maintaining a board composed of members from diverse professional backgrounds, genders, and ethnicities, with varied tenures, as well as directors who possess highly relevant and complementary skill sets, including the ability to oversee ESG topics.
Business ethics and professional integrity
Operating honestly, fairly, with transparency and in accordance with the law, and expecting compliance with corresponding ethical standards as outlined for employees, suppliers and contractors.
Climate
Analyzing climate risk exposure and assessing business resilience to anticipate, prepare for and respond to climate events and the low-carbon transition. Reducing energy use and GHG emissions that contribute to climate change throughout our entire value chain (e.g., operations, suppliers, products and services).
Cybersecurity and data privacy
Maintaining clear policies and practices to mitigate and respond to risks from data collection, storage and usage, and safeguarding the financial and personal data of stakeholders.
Executive compensation
Providing fair and transparent compensation of executives.
Human rights
Committing to respect human rights and understanding our responsibility to help prevent and mitigate human rights abuses.
Nature and biodiversity
Managing recycling efforts, waste, water consumption and other nature-related topics, such as forestation, in our operations.
Inclusion
Enhancing efforts to promote inclusion and equal opportunities and compensation within the workplace, as well as in the broader marketplace.
Employee attraction and engagement
Adopting a holistic approach to the employee value proposition from recruitment to engagement, including compensation and benefits, to create a positive work environment so people want to join, and choose to stay at, Moody’s.
Employee health and well-being
Promoting a healthy and safe workplace through companywide policies and practices that help contribute to employees’ physical, mental and financial well-being.
Learning and development
Equipping employees with training and education opportunities to enhance business-specific, leadership and core capability skills and develop their careers.
Philanthropy and employee volunteerism
Contributing to socioeconomic development and environmental causes through grants, in-kind gifts, volunteer time and related charitable activities.
Support for small and medium enterprises
Maximizing support and financial inclusion for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Our ability to execute on our sustainability strategy in a significant way requires input from all of our stakeholders. We regularly engage with a diverse set of internal and external stakeholders, including customers, employees, investors, suppliers, communities, government regulators and policy influencers. Feedback from these engagements helps us evolve and advance our sustainability strategy. We engage with these groups to keep them informed of our efforts through a variety of channels, including in-person or virtual meetings, internal employee engagement (such as well-being surveys and team conversations), customer satisfaction surveys, social media accounts and community events.
