Product Release: Social data anchored in outcomes, not intentions
- hollymorran
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
Social factors such as workforce stability, organisational culture, health & safety, labour practices, and supply chain conditions, can shape operational resilience and downside risk. Yet in many ESG data packages, “Social” is treated as a subset within a broader score or disclosure-led framework, making it difficult to isolate what matters, compare peers, and understand whether commitments translate into real-world effectiveness.
That's why we’re releasing Impact Cubed’s Social Dataset: a social risk lens built for investment applications, combining policy indicators with observable outcomes so investors can assess both intent and effectiveness.
Policies indicate intent. Outcomes reveal effectiveness. Robust risk assessment requires both.
What’s new
Impact Cubed’s Social Dataset is designed to help institutional investors move beyond policy monitoring and disclosure counting, adding a clearer outcomes dimension that supports issuer, peer, and portfolio-level decision-making.
Designed for investment workflows
Independent social metrics - not buried within an aggregated ESG score
Five social sub-themes, enabling investors to focus on what’s most relevant to their strategy
Different signal timings across the risk chain, where indicators can emerge at different points
Broader, more usable coverage
50+ core social factors in the standard dataset
800+ additional social factors available on demand
Peer, benchmark, portfolio, and fund comparison, alongside raw data access as required
Multi-source perspective
The dataset incorporates a variety of sources to support more differentiated insight, combining corporate disclosure with additional viewpoints, from self-reported employee experience data to UNGC violations, to help investors assess social factors from multiple angles.
The five social lenses
Use the dataset to view social risk through five distinct sub-themes:
Health, Safety & Labour metrics such as Total recordable injuries, Fatalities (supply chain), Community grievance mechanism , or Freedom of association.
Governance metrics including Bribery incidents, Employee turnover rate, Board independence, and UNGC/OECD violations.
Culture including Friend recommendation rate, Employee satisfaction score, Diversity & inclusion score, and Culture & values score.
Diversity & equity, covering percentage representation of different ethnic backgrounds in leadership positions.
Gender & Pay Equity, featuring Women in middle management, Parental leave same for all genders, Compensation and benefits score, and Commitment to living wage.
What it looks like in practice
Leadership intent vs real-world outcomes
Many issuers disclose DEI commitments and leadership policies. The investment question is whether intent translates into outcomes, especially at Board and Executive levels where governance and succession risk can concentrate.
In the example below, we observe how stated diversity-related policies align with leadership realities within the MSCI ACWI universe. It illustrates how similar commitments can result in materially different representation outcomes across management and board levels, with implications for succession planning and corporate resilience.
Women represent ~38% of employees, showing meaningful participation, but still short of parity.
However, representation noticeably drops as seniority rises. Women hold ~33% of middle management but only ~29% of senior management, suggesting progress in the leadership pipeline but a persistent gap as careers advance.
Workplace policies inform the narrative:
Equal parental leave remains rare: only ~3.8% of MSCI ACWI exposure is in companies offering equal benefits.
Paid parental leave is more common, but still not the norm: ~30% of MSCI ACWI exposure is in companies offering paid leave.
Safety concerns as a source of asymmetric downside risk
In safety and labour risk, the most material outcomes can be non-linear—where infrequent incidents carry outsized operational, regulatory, and reputational consequences.
In this example we compare health, safety, and labour-related outcomes across issuers with broadly similar stated safety and labour policies. This highlights how real-world incident data can diverge meaningfully from disclosed controls and commitments.
Shell reports materially worse safety outcomes on core injury metrics vs Total Energies.
Total recordable injuries: Shell 501 vs ~95 Total Energies.
Total recordable injury rate: Shell is higher (~1.10% vs ~0.44%).
Shell has been flagged for UNGC/OECD-related concerns, linked to human rights and environmental allegations in the Niger Delta.
Differences in safety and labour outcomes can signal non-linear downside risk, where infrequent incidents carry outsized financial, operational, and reputational consequences. Elevated exposure to ESG-related safety and labour risks may therefore affect an issuer’s risk profile and investor perception, particularly when such risks persist over time.
Extending coverage: 800+ additional factors on demand
In addition to the core dataset, 800+ further social factors can be licensed based on client interest, including:
Workforce structure & dynamics: hiring metrics, labour movement and retention beyond turnover, workforce expertise mapping
Diversity beyond gender & ethnicity: sexuality, family status, skills diversity, disability
Extended supply chain factors: supply chain workforce composition, pay and benefits, labour practices, workforce governance
Learn more
If you’d like to discuss coverage for your universe, portfolio use cases, or licensing options, please contact us at [email protected].