Morningstar Publishes Fourth Annual Corporate Sustainability Report
Morningstar drives transparency in efforts to minimize racial and gender-adjusted pay gaps and discloses climate-related risks and opportunities in latest sustainability reports
CHICAGO, March 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment insights, today published its fourth annual Corporate Sustainability Report, examining the company’s efforts to incorporate sustainability practices and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data across the firm.
"At Morningstar, we believe promoting transparency, increasing access to useful data, and empowering choice will support successful outcomes for investors," said Kunal Kapoor, chief executive officer at Morningstar. "This report is one example that shows our company values aren't just words on a page; they guide our actions, both big decisions and daily habits across the entire firm, with the goal of growing value through these actions over time."
Morningstar continues to lead in advancing its global pay equity program.
Morningstar’s 2023 adjusted pay equity examination resulted in pay changes for a similar number of employees compared with the 2022 study; however, the amount spent to remediate impacted employees decreased by 40%.
Also in 2023, Morningstar made pay ranges visible for roles across North America. In early 2024, each employee’s pay range for their role was made available globally.
As one of few US-based financial services firms to disclose global pay gap data, Morningstar was awarded the Fair Pay Certificate by Fair Pay Workplace for its continued commitment to pay transparency and pay equity.
The Company advanced its environmental impact management program and associated disclosures included in the Corporate Sustainability Report.
Using its own Low Carbon Transition Ratings and Physical Climate Risk Metrics, Morningstar analyzed the company’s carbon exposure and physical climate risks to assess its alignment with a net-zero pathway and evaluate potential risks to properties and assets, respectively. These solutions seek to empower investors to make informed investment decisions.
Morningstar expanded emissions disclosures to detail emerging areas of strategic priority and provided investors and stakeholders with more data on its efforts. Morningstar now discloses Scope 2 location- and market-based emissions and for the first time, reports waste and water consumption data.
Morningstar published an Environmental Statement detailing its environmental management practices, expectations, and how it plans to advance impact reduction efforts in a manner consistent with the company goals.
Morningstar is an active member in the Net-Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU), the first free, global, centralized database of private sector climate data, which went live in 2023.
"Our approach to sustainability strategy and management is guided by Morningstar’s long-standing commitment to transparency," said Gabriel Presler, head of corporate sustainability at Morningstar. "This year we continued to focus on human capital management, one of Morningstar’s most material ESG topics, and advanced on our decarbonization goals. We are committed to making year-over-year progress in our efforts to build a more sustainable business and workplace by turning our own ESG data and research lens on ourselves."
Morningstar also today published a series of other reports, including its first Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures Report, which reflects the Company’s commitment to align its reporting frameworks and standards with industry best practices and provide its employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders with data pertaining to its climate efforts.
The Company’s first United Kingdom (UK) Gender Pay Gap Report discloses pay gap data for the full UK workforce, showcasing that Morningstar’s commitments to diversity and equity extend to colleagues globally. Morningstar’s third annual Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Report discloses data that the International Financial Reporting Standards deems material to the Company’s financial growth.
For more about Morningstar’s corporate sustainability efforts, visit https://www.morningstar.com/company/corporate-sustainability.
About Morningstar, Inc.
Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment insights in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The Company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers and owners, retirement plan providers and sponsors, and institutional investors in the debt and private capital markets. Morningstar provides data and research insights on a wide range of investment offerings, including managed investment products, publicly listed companies, private capital markets, debt securities, and real-time global market data. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries, with approximately $286 billion in assets under advisement and management as of Dec. 31, 2023. The Company operates through wholly- or majority-owned subsidiaries in 32 countries. For more information, visit www.morningstar.com/company. Follow Morningstar on X @MorningstarInc.
Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements as that term is used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our current expectations about future events or future financial performance. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain, and often contain words such as committed," "consider," "future," "goal," "is designed to," "maintain," "may," "might," "objective," "ongoing," "could," "expect," "intend," "plan," "possible," "potential," "seek," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "prospects", "continue," "seek," "strategy," "strive," "will," "would," or the negative thereof, and similar expressions. These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause the events we discuss not to occur or to differ significantly from what we expect. For us, these risks and uncertainties include, among others, failing to maintain and protect our brand, independence, and reputation; failure to prevent and/or mitigate cybersecurity events and the failure to protect confidential information, including personal information about individuals; compliance failures, regulatory action, or changes in laws applicable to our credit ratings operations, investment advisory, environmental, social, and governance (ESG)and index businesses; failing to innovate our product and service offerings, or anticipate our clients’ changing needs; the impact of artificial intelligence(AI)and related technologies on our business, legal and regulatory exposure profile and reputation; failing to detect errors in our products or the failure of our products to perform properly due to defects, malfunctions or similar problems; failing to recruit, develop, and retain qualified employees; prolonged volatility or downturns affecting the financial sector, global financial markets, and the global economy and its effect on our revenue from asset-based fees and our credit ratings business; failing to scale our operations and increase productivity in order to implement our business plans and strategies; liability for any losses that result from errors in our automated advisory tools or errors in the use of the information and data we collect; inadequacy of our operational risk management, business continuity programs and insurance coverage in the event of a material disruptive event; failing to efficiently integrate and leverage acquisitions and other investments, which may not realize the expected business or financial benefits, to produce the results we anticipate; failing to maintain growth across our businesses in today's fragmented geopolitical, regulatory and cultural world; liability relating to the information and data we collect, store, use, create, and distribute or the reports that we publish or are produced by our software products; the potential adverse effect of our indebtedness on our cash flows and financial and operational flexibility; challenges in accounting for tax complexities in the global jurisdictions which we operate in and their effect on our tax obligations and tax rates; and failing to protect our intellectual property rights or claims of intellectual property infringement against us. A more complete description of these risks and uncertainties, among others, can be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent Reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q. If any of these risks and uncertainties materialize, our actual future results and other future events may vary significantly from what we expect. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. You are, however, advised to review any further disclosures we make on related subjects, and about new or additional risks, uncertainties and assumptions in our future filings with the SEC on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K.
©2024 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
MORN-C
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240327978193/en/
Contacts
Landon Hudson, +1 312 696-6037 or newsroom@morningstar.com
