Spain has lost some weight in the latest annual review of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, the most recognized sustainability index globally . Of the 322 members of this indicator, 15 companies (4.7% of its members) are Spanish. Last year there were 17, which represented 5.3% of its members. See more news on ‘responsible’ indices in the Economist Sustainable Investing and ESG.

According to the changes made public last Friday, with the market already closed, by S&P Global, ACS, Naturgy and Mapfre have left the selective, and Grifols has entered . The manufacturer of blood products joins the other members of the world index: BBVA, Santander, Bankinter, CaixaBank, Ferrovial, Siemens Gamesa, Línea Directa, Inditex, Amadeus, Indra, Enagás, Endesa, Iberdrola and REE.

Beyond the news that affect Spanish stocks, the most relevant entries (due to their capitalization) in this latest review are those of Alphabet, Medtronic and Gilead; and the outputs with the most weight are those of Nestlé, TotalEnergies and Humana.

The Dow Jones Sustainability World Index is the most recognized within the S&P Dow Jones family of sustainable indices , but among them is also its European brother (Dow Jones Sustainability Europe Index), in which Spain has managed to maintain the same number of members, 14 companies, 9.5% of total members.

REE, Enagás and -again- Naturgy have come out of the European indicator in this latest review. They are replaced by Iberdrola, Merlin Properties and Acciona, in addition to BBVA, Santander, Bankinter, ACS, Ferrovial, Siemens Gamesa, Línea Directa, Grifols, Inditex, Amadeus and Telefónica. All these changes will be effective on November 22.

Evaluation via questionnaire
These indices are weighted by capitalization, adjusted to the free float . For the inclusion or exclusion of a company in this family of selectives, the score obtained in a Corporate Sustainability Assessment is essential, which has specific questionnaires for 61 different industries, each of which incorporates between 80 and 100 questions ” on key issues on the economic and governance, social and environmental dimensions, “according to the agency itself. This assessment is carried out by around 10,000 companies around the world.

More than 18% in the year
Dow Jones launched its sustainable indices in 1999. Itss were the first selective to reflect the stock market performance of leading ESG companies. So far this year, the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index has scored just over 18%, surpassing the Spanish Ibex 35 by more than 5 percentage points, and lagging behind another global sustainable index, the MSCI ESG World, which is revalued by about 23%.

If we go back to its launch 21 years ago, the sustainable global indicator of Dow Jones has scored 3.6% annualized in these more than two decades , according to Bloomberg . In the same period, a non-ESG world index such as the MSCI World has registered an annualized 4.5%, while the US S&P 500 is around 6%.

This family of ESG indicators also has references for North America, Asia-Pacific, Emerging markets, Korea, Australia, Chile and, through the Mila Pacific Alliance Index, companies from Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.