Laura F. Merin

Founded in 1988, KLD Research & Analytics, Inc. is an independent investment research firm located in Boston. In November 2009, the firm was acquired by RiskMetrics Group, an investment research firm that provides management tools to help professionals integrate environmental, social and governance factors (ESG) into their investment decisions. KLD Research & Analytics provides social research and indices to institutional investors including institutional investors, managers, trustees, consultants and advisors. KLD's research can be used for screening, stock picking or fund creation. KLD seeks to provide global research and index products to facilitate the integration of ESG factors into the investment process. Through their products and services, they also seek to define accountability standards that can enable investors, managers and fiduciaries to influence corporate behavior through their investment decisions and share ownership. KLD researches the social, environmental, and governance performance of corporations. The firm's research, ratings and analysis is based on 5 distinct data sources. They collect data from a wide variety of company, government, non-government organization and media sources. On a daily basis, KLD tracks each company through more than 14,000 global media sources. The firm uses this data to rate the social, environmental and governance performance of companies using a proprietary framework of positive and negative indicators. Companies are rated in 7 major qualitative issue areas: (1) environment (2) community (3) corporate governance (4) diversity (5) employee relations (6) human rights and product quality and (7) safety. Analysts assign strengths and concerns associated with these issues to provide a social and environmental profile of each company. KLD's business involvement screens are associated with activities that are controversial to certain social investors. KLD uses 3 processes to maintain the accuracy and currency of their research: (1) continuous updates (2) fiscal year updates and (3) annual updates. The firm's senior analysts perform a quality review of every company profile at least once per year. They edit daily updates for content and ratings quality. KLD's Ratings Review Committee (RRC) consists of the firm's senior analysts and the Director of Research. The RRC reviews controversial questions, maintains the currency of existing ratings and develops new ratings as thought leaders for the business.