site.btaBulgarian Stock Exchange Plans to Launch Its Own ESG Index

The management of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) plans to launch its own index of the sustainability of Bulgarian public companies, ESG index. Its methodology has been developed in accordance with the established cooperation with the company LSEG Data and Analytics, formerly Refinitiv. The future index will be based on LSEG's ESG scores, Manyu Moravenov, a member of the Board of Directors and CEO of BSE, said here Wednesday. He was speaking at an event of the Financial Supervision Commission on the challenges in the non-banking financial sector.

Moravenov urged public companies to obtain a ESG score. The process itself is free of charge. Companies should fill in 186 indicators structured along the three sustainability dimensions of environment, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance. 

Given the upcoming launch of the ESG index, the BSE will also reconsider the need for keeping the current corporate governance score. The decision on whether one index will replace the other or both will coexist will be taken in consultation with the National Corporate Governance Committee. 

For Moravenov, the ESG standards and corporate governance are at the core of the activities and the way public companies - and not only them - should communicate with the public from now on.  

The OECD principles are a global standard and set the framework within which companies must operate in order to access finance through the capital markets. These standards are also necessary for public companies to build trust with investors and stakeholders. And the list of these stakeholders has now been expanded to include anyone who is involved with a company to one degree or another, including the news media and its employees, Moravenov explained.