Toronto – Act Analytics today announced a new data product released to support the growth in sustainable investing and appetite for quality, independent and timely ESG data. ACT Events leverages the natural language processing (NLP) behind Act ESG Scores, to intelligently identify clusters of ESG activity in a particular period of time, on a particular ESG topic, representing meaningful ESG events as covered by independent news journalists. With the introduction of Event scores, users will be able to quickly see the size and nature of recent ESG events, clustered around a central representative article. Clients can customize and filter events by the UN SDG inspired categories i.e. quickly identify events in a topic like diversity or pollution.

Sustainable finance and ESG is a critical investment lens representing 33% of AUM in the US at $17.1 trillion, growing 42% between 2018 and 2020 according to a recent report by the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. Enabling this growth with independent, transparent and customizable real time ESG data using cutting edge NLP remains the focus of Act Analytics. The launch of Act Events follows extensive market collaboration with investors looking to quickly identify either positive or negative ESG related company developments picked up in trusted news articles, that are likely to have implications on their portfolio holdings.

Act Analytics uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to generate news-driven ESG sentiment scores for stocks that evolve in real time, as new information becomes available. Stocks are rated on the basis of a user-defined universe of ESG themes. The scores are generated from analysis of trusted, independent news about a company. The NLP algorithms diagnose whether news is positive or negative and adjust the scores accordingly. In particular, there is the Act Fast Score that reacts quickly to news and the standard Act Score that highlights longer-term trends. The event scores uses our intelligent clustering algorithm to help users to efficiently monitor risk, enhance reporting and identify issues for engagement.

Zachary Dan, CEO of Act Analytics, said: “We are excited to release Act Events to help customers to easily identify significant ESG events in their portfolios from the tens of thousands of scores we are generating daily. The market needs a data product that can save users time in easily identifying clusters of common ESG themed articles on a stock, in support of their analysis and engagement”

Act Analytics continues to invest in cutting edge applications of NLP to deliver ESG intelligence to investors in meaningful ways. ACT Events is initially available by API and is currently being integrated into the Act Explorer web application.