BMV Becomes S&P’s Sustainability Yearbook Member

S&P’s Sustainability Yearbook includes the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) for the first time in its 2023 edition. The 2023 Yearbook selected 708 out of 7,800 assessed companies in recognition of their Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA). S&P recognized the companies based on their S&P Global ESG Scores, calculated from the CSA, which considers a wide array of criteria relevant to investors focused on financial sustainability. BMV is featured along with 14 other Mexican companies.

“Inside the BMV Group, significant progress has been made. From the point of view of governance, sustainability was institutionalized through the creation of internal policies such as sustainability and human rights, inclusion and labor well-being. Likewise, it has an integrated annual report based on international methodologies such as GRI and SASB,” said José-Oriol Bosch, Director General, BMV Group.

Among the actions the BMV undertook is the placement of labeled bonds to raise funds to develop ESG-oriented projects. “The BMV Group seeks to provide the market with different alternatives to facilitate the transition toward a more sustainable environment through products such as labeled bonds (green, social, sustainable, blue and linked to sustainability) with which, from its launch in 2016, more than MX$175,000 million (US$ 9.23 billion) have been financed. This has allowed various companies to obtain resources to develop projects that have a positive impact on society and the environment,” published BMV. The stock exchange also said it deployed an environmental print reduction strategy by offsetting 100% of residual emissions.

BMV is part of a group with another six stock exchanges that committed to achieve net zero before 2050. The group also developed the Guide to Carbon Neutrality for companies to design their strategy towards carbon neutrality. 

"Being part of this yearbook is a recognition of efforts that reaffirm our commitment to continue promoting sustainable development in the country and the region, and as a consequence of a strategy that sets the course for the environmental, social, and governance agenda in the financial and stock market sector in Mexico,” said Bosch.

Mexico’s capital market is an important player in guiding and developing sustainability policies and practices for corporate governance in Latin America. “Latin American companies raised US$25.6 billion in green, social and sustainability (GSS) corporate bonds in 2021, with more than 90% of this amount issued by non-financial companies. Chile (US$14.8 billion) and Mexico (US$13 billion) have had the most active markets for GSS corporate bonds from 2013 to 2022,” reported the OECD.

“For large asset managers, 47% report that they review the sustainability disclosure from all investee companies and 26% that they do so only for specific industries,” the OECD’s report reads. Moreover, “While not every country requires listed companies to disclose an annual sustainability report, companies representing 83% of the region's market capitalization disclose sustainability information.”