ACA Group, a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) consultancy focusing on financial services clients, has acquired Ethos ESG, a provider of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings data and software for financial advisors, asset managers, institutions, and investors.
Founded in 2019 in Minneapolis, Ethos provides a platform for evaluating 350,000+ impact ratings of stocks and funds across 45 causes, including climate change, racial justice, and mental health. The platform includes full transparency into rating methodology and the proprietary set of 100 underlying databases. Ethos can also scrape for publicly available information to include in ratings, and further aid GRC professionals in understanding the ESG characteristics of their investments.
Ethos recently partnered with Change Finance on a carbon neutrality certification program in which the company performs independent analysis of funds’ carbon footprints (covering scope 1 and 2 emissions) and carbon offsets to verify carbon neutrality in a given period.
Ethos has six employees, according to LinkedIn.
ACA’s acquisition of Ethos will add an analytics offering to its ESG advisory practice.
“This is an exciting step in helping to grow our presence in the ESG space and is ACA Group’s first foray into analytics as a service,” said Shvetank Shah, CEO of ACA Group. “We are invigorated to be building out and launching our data capabilities, starting with Ethos ESG. Combining data with our scalable solutions will continue to empower our clients to reimagine GRC and protect and grow their business.”
ACA’s ESG advisory practice supports the programmatic needs of firms integrating ESG into their business or investment activities. The practice’s offerings include strategy, policy and procedures, regulations and frameworks, training, and external reporting. Ethos adds the ability for clients to easily analyze investments and automate several elements of ESG reporting.
“This pairing will help us to leverage data in a new way to help firms of all sizes develop and monitor their ESG programs to mitigate risk, make informed choices, combat greenwashing, and grow profitably and sustainably in the process,” said Dan Mistler, head of ESG advisory at ACA Group. “Access to high-quality, transparent ESG data is an essential part of any ESG endeavor, and our partnership with Ethos will allow us to build and protect our clients’ ESG strategies in ways few others can.”
Luke Wilcox, founder and CEO of Ethos ESG, added, “We are thrilled to partner with ACA Group, as their brand and reach in the GRC space is well-known.”
The Ethos deal follows ACA’s recent acquisition of Focus 1 Associates, a boutique Oregon consultancy specializing in supporting SEC-registered investment advisors with their compliance needs.
ACA is headquartered in New York and has more than 1,250 employees in the US, UK, and Malta providing GRC advisory and managed services, as well as distribution solutions via its proprietary regulatory technology platform.
Sourced from Consulting.us