ePulse’s unique data and timely insights enable our clients to make more informed business decisions.
Whether clients need to keep tabs on competitors, track actions of activist groups, spot major developments in companies they invest in, or better understand the business implications of existing developments, ePulse services can help. The following case studies illustrate some of the ways our ePulse services provide value to our clients:
Continuous Competitive Benchmarking Within an Industry Sector
The Challenge: This company realized the value of benchmarking their ESG performance against that of its competitors, but because of the time and effort involved, benchmarking efforts were conducted only every few years. As the pace of ESG change quickened, the company realized that their benchmarking was neither comprehensive nor timely enough to enable them to see emerging issues quickly. Often, they missed key developments or learned about them too late to act.
ePulse Service: ePulse cost-effectively converted their benchmarking efforts from an every-few-years initiative to a concise quarterly report analyzing the latest developments and changes over time. ePulse monitors the 25-30 major competitors in the industry sector (and a few ‘bellweather’ companies outside the sector) for developments across the full spectrum of ESG topics and sub-topics. On a daily basis, our technology gathers information on news developments globally, actions of activist groups or governments relevant to the industry, and new initiatives or announcements amongst competitors. On a quarterly basis, our team of ESG analysts review and summarize this vast amount of data to extract the most significant developments and spot trends and patterns, such as what ESG issues or companies are generating the most ‘buzz’ in the media. Our timely and unique insights and recommendations enable the key decision-makers in the company, from corporate communications to sustainability to senior management, to stay ahead of trends and make smarter business decisions.
ESG Tracking for Investment Portfolio Management
The Challenge: This investment firm conducted research on the ESG activities of hundreds of
companies as it made investment decisions and engaged in shareholder advocacy. Conducting this research for each company was time consuming for the investment firm's analysts, and once research on a company was done it was challenging to stay up to date with the latest ESG developments impacting companies in its portfolio. The company needed a streamlined way to gather this information so its analysts could keep pace with the latest developments and devote their time to making sense of the data rather than collecting it.
ePulse Service: Using ePulse’s web portal, each analyst can now quickly access the companies and
industries they track and find the latest ESG news and trends, organized by topic. ePulse’s robust technology
searches the web constantly for relevant developments, using sophisticated keywords and filtering to deliver relevant articles without the duplication and off-topic ‘noise’ associated with their traditional research methods. Analysts report that these capabilities alone have saved them significant time they would previously take to wade through off-topic articles. The user-friendly organization of the web portal enables analysts to get a quick read on companies to see if there are any major negative or positive developments impacting their investments.
Monitoring State Environmental/Sustainability Developments
The Challenge: A diversity of organizations and personnel needed to monitor the full range of environmental and sustainability developments related to or occurring in the state of Massachusetts. This presented a significant challenge, particularly regarding gathering the information comprehensively, consistently, and continuously. Further, the interests of the different personnel raised challenges regarding how to present the information in a manner that facilitates access and avoids data overload.
ePulse Service: ePulse developed an online web portal through which it publishes the full range of environmental and sustainability developments related to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Updated weekly, the portal presents the information grouped into key categories (e.g., Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Colleges & Universities, Awards & Recognition, etc.), which enables users to quickly access just the information they need. To highlight the most significant developments, ePulse analysts determine which stories are most significant; these are highlighted in a scrolling news ticker and are grouped separately within the portal. With each weekly update, email notification is sent to all users, summarizing the data captured by that week's update and providing direct links to the most significant developments. As a result of this portal, personnel who need to keep their finger on the pulse of environmental and sustainability developments in Massachusetts can rest easy, knowing that the key developments they need to monitor are catalogued in an easy-to-use manner within the portal.
In-Depth Monitoring of NGO Activities
The Challenge: A company recognized that the views, opinions, and activities of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Greenpeace, were often an indicator of key issues and emerging trends, and had significant meaning to their customers. In addition, the company regularly interacted with NGOs and was interested in knowing the impact of their initiatives.
Yet, it was time and labor-intensive to try to keep up with the activities of many NGOs across multiple environmental and social issues.
ePulse Service: ePulse developed a custom research report that summarized developments related to dozens of specific NGOs and other organizations whose activities had impacts on the company’s industry. Our robust search technology mined the web for the full range of NGO developments, from major announcements and initiatives down to the smallest developments, providing a narrower breadth (NGO-focused) but a greater depth (covering even 'lesser' developments). Our analysts reviewed all developments and prepared a monthly summary report for distribution throughout the client's organization. As a result, the client was able to keep abreast of the latest NGO activities and concerns of relevance to their business and see trends in how these changed month by month.
Tracking Activist Campaigns
The Challenge: An investment bank needed access to the most current information to assess the environmental and social risks of its deals. Each month an environmental specialist would manually review the web sites of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) to develop an inventory of major NGO campaigns and which companies
were the targets. They made a custom research request to ePulse to see if our automated ESG tracking capabilities could extract this information more effectively.
ePulse Service: ePulse ran a trial where we used our proprietary technology to monitor NGO campaigns, checking developments 24/7, and compiling the results. The company conducted the same research (manually) during the trial. When the results were in, ePulse had found 350% more campaigns than the company’s researchers.
Tracking Regulatory Changes & Initiatives
The Challenge: A global international company found it difficult to keep pace with the full range of U.S. environmental regulatory changes at federal, state, and local levels. Previous
regulatory tracking initiatives were time consuming and burdensome, and while they identified most major national regulatory changes, they often failed to identify smaller changes in federal, state and local programs.
ePulse Service: ePulse was configured to specifically track the key environmental issues, regulatory authorities, and localities and to do so at significant depth. In addition to news coverage, ePulse's website content monitoring capabilities were used to automatically watch key regulatory websites for even the smallest changes. ePulse analysts then regularly reviewed the information and provided consolidated reports to the company about regulatory changes, upcoming potential issues, the presence of new guidance materials, and related new (and potential future) regulatory developments.