ESG Today reports that over 100 portfolio managers, climate risk executives, and data management executives across North America, Europe, the UK and Asia-Pacific have been surveyed for the information.

Results showcased that some 92% of executives project an increase of about 10% with regards to ESG data spending when compared to last year, while over half of them want to increase this investment by at least 20%.

This is because most executive started to see ESG data as an important competitive advantage, with 44% of the surveyed managers saying that this factor is critical for the competitiveness of their companies.

Almost two-thirds of the executives who participated in the study, 64% to be more specific, stated that they believe their companies are ahead of the competition when it comes to ESG capabilities, while 28% think improvements can be done, as they are slightly behind the rest.

Leila Sadiq, Global Head of Enterprise Data Content at Bloomberg, explained that "once categorized as an alternative data source, ESG data has quickly become integral to the value financial firms deliver to their clients. Executives are making significant strategic investments in ESG data acquisition and management to differentiate themselves and meet client and regulatory demand."

When it comes to selecting an ESG data provider, most executives agreed that data quality is the most important factor, while things like cost and ease of integration come after.

29% of the respondents told experts that they apply a firmwide approach when evaluating and implementing ESG strategies, while over half of the managers said their companies use a decentralized solution provided by individual business lines.

When it comes to following the returned ESG data, managers suggested that the most difficult thing to do was evaluating the constantly evolving and new ESG data required.