Nordic corporate bank SEB announced today the launch of its new ESG Assessment Methodology (SEAM), aimed at quantifying the impact of environmental, social and governance factors on companies’ financial performance. According to the company, the new approach was developed in response to clients’ desire to gain insight into how sustainability factors affect the investment conditions for the companies that SEB analyses.

According to SEB, SEAM takes a novel value-centric approach to ESG, analysing and quantifying ESG factors that will have a material impact on companies’ financial performance. In addition to valuation and responsibility analyses, the framework also encompasses assessment of a company’s performance with respect to the climate impact thresholds that are laid out in the EU taxonomy.

To date, SEB stated that SEAM analyses have been conducted and published for more than 50 companies covered by SEB’s Equity Research team, with an expectation of completing analyses on half of the remaining companies covered by year end, and on all companies before midsummer 2021. SEAM results are integrated in SEB’s equity analyses, accessible for all clients that purchase the bank’s Equity Research’s analysis service.

Martin Nilsson, Head of SEB Equities, said:

“From what we can judge, SEAM is a considerably more ambitious, systematic and forward-looking analysis than what has been offered in the market to date. We have received an overwhelmingly positive response from our clients, who appreciate the approach’s stringency and objectivity, and that it provides new insights to inform the challenging task of ESG integration into the investment decision-making process.”