Nasdaq’s role as an exchange operator, public company, and provider of ESG-focused marketplace solutions gives us a unique perspective on the challenges corporates face in navigating the capital markets and investor engagement. Nasdaq as an Enterprise is on our own ESG journey – a strategy underpinned by our corporate purpose: to advance economic progress for all. Our approach to ESG is focused both internally and externally.  

Internally, we manage our businesses’ ESG-related risks and opportunities and the corresponding impact we have as an organization across our own operations. For example, we are taking steps to minimize our environmental footprint and address the negative effects of climate change. In 2022, our net-zero emissions targets were approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, and we achieved carbon neutrality for the fifth consecutive year. We’ve continued to solidify our position as a destination for the world’s leading talent by deepening our culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By leading with best-practice governance policies, we continue to solidify our business resilience. These efforts have earned us industry-leading rankings from leading ESG raters and recognition by respected third-party validators for our inclusive workplace policies. 

Externally, we strive to have positive economic and societal impact through the Nasdaq Foundation. We support the establishment of thoughtful partnerships aimed at diversifying entrepreneurship and creating accessible pathways to the wealth capital markets can create, expanding our community impact around the globe. Importantly, we also focus on the impact we have on the world through our ESG-related products and services that support our clients’ objectives. 

Nasdaq’s Capital Access Platforms Division is taking advantage of technology to help corporates unlock ROI on their sustainability reporting processes and help investors gain more transparency through unique data and analytics, so they can make better investment decisions. Within Nasdaq’s Market Services Division, our Nordic and Baltics markets are leading the global effort in addressing the scale of investment required for green transformation and developing a broad spectrum of investment channels across public and private. Nasdaq’s Financial Technology Division is playing an important role in the development of global carbon credit markets. By providing institutional grade infrastructure to the market, we can help address many of the pain points that have so far prevented the market from achieving scale and emerging as a genuine tool in the fight against climate change. Recent examples of how these divisions simplify the lives of our clients in their sustainability and impact investing journey include:  

Capital Access Platforms 

We’ve been on this journey for many years now to be a true partner to corporates and investors as well as a bridge that helps both groups unlock ROI. Our goals are to help corporates elevate their sustainability reporting process and assist investors in achieving transparency through unique data and analytics to make better decisions. We recently launched three new offerings designed to help corporates and investors streamline their sustainability and impact investing journeys. 

Designed for corporates, Nasdaq Metrio™ is a Software as a Service (SaaS)-based, end-to-end platform that helps them to better collect, measure, and report sustainability data. Since the Metrio acquisition announcement last year, Nasdaq quickly integrated Nasdaq OneReport® and Metrio legacy technologies (combining the power of two market-proven solutions with over 30 years of integrated product history). The platform also features a new Carbon Accounting and Management product for companies looking to focus on their scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. 

The new Nasdaq eVestment® ESG Analytics solution generates greater transparency for the global institutional market, so investors can make better data-driven impact investment decisions. The offering provides qualitative and quantitative information for the institutional investment community to understand risks and exposures. Asset owners, managers, investors, and consultants will now have more transparency – including sustainability and diversity data – so they can make more informed decisions.  

Nasdaq Sustainable Lens™ is a SaaS-based ESG intelligence platform that harnesses the power of generative artificial intelligence (AI) to help companies navigate complexity and stakeholders’ asks for greater transparency. Nasdaq has been leveraging AI for several years, and Sustainable Lens is the latest example of how we’re using technology to help simplify and reduce cost burdens for companies around sustainability and ESG reporting.   

Market Services 

Our European Market Services has developed a standardized and transparent framework to facilitate both equity and debt financing for companies. These initiatives include Nasdaq Green Designations and sustainable bonds, educating institutional and public investors to allocate capital to environmentally conscious companies and projects.  

Nasdaq also acquired a majority stake in Puro.earth, the world’s leading crediting platform for engineered carbon removal. This strategic partnership connects industrial carbon removal, based on the Puro Standard, with buyers seeking to implement sustainability goals by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Beyond the benefits of providing our global network of corporate clients with access to scienced-based carbon removal projects, we also envision the partnership to support the development of global carbon marketplaces that will be critical in scaling the investment and innovation required to achieve the net-zero ambition.  

Financial Technology  

Nasdaq’s technology – provided to financial market infrastructures, carbon registry platforms, and other service providers around the world – underpins full trade lifecycle of carbon credits, from trading platforms to the post-trade infrastructure that sits behind the market.  

Carbon credit marketplaces, such as CIX Exchange in Singapore which leverages Nasdaq’s trading technology, are vital in establishing market-driven prices, allowing participants to compare individual carbon projects and trade standard contracts. Nasdaq also recently launched a pioneering new technology that securely digitizes the issuance, settlement, and custody of carbon credits, allowing market operators and registries to create standardized digital credits and distribute them with full auditability throughout the transaction lifecycle.  

In the first major use case of this technology, it will be used by Puro.earth – to register CO2 Removal Certificates, or CORCs. The ability to track issuance, retirement, and the transfer of the assets is vital to provide full traceability and transparency, avoid double counting, and improve overall integrity of the market.