ERM Sustainability Institute’s latest report in its "Rate the Raters" series: “ESG Ratings in evolution”—which is based on a May through July 2025 survey of 386 public and private company respondents across sectors worldwide—provides noteworthy insights on the use and perceptions of an evolving field of ESG ratings and ratings providers.
Among the insights:
- Investor demand is the top driver of companies’ engagement with rating agencies (46% of companies, down from 57% in 2023), followed by customer demand and performance assessment (each at 23% of companies, up from 7% and 21%, respectively, in 2023)
- Companies ranked EcoVadis, whose platform contains reporting data and ratings of 150,000 companies, as the most useful rating, with a third-place ranking on quality. S&P Global was ranked best in average perceived quality and third in average usefulness, while CDP ranked second in terms of perceived average quality and usefulness.
- North American companies’ perception of the quality and usefulness of ESG raters lags APAC and EMEA.
- Compared to 2023, the number of companies engaging with over ten raters dropped from 19% in 2023 to 8% in 2025, while those engaging with three to five rating agencies increased from 36% in 2023 to 45% in 2025.
- Trust that raters will accurately judge a company’s sustainability performance increased slightly from an average of 2.86 (on a scale of 1 – 5) in 2023 to 3.12 in 2025.
- The vast majority of companies (84%) plan to continue to engage with ESG ratings; however, nearly half believe the relevance of ESG ratings will decline over time.
See the release and access additional information & resources on our Sustainability page.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!