Barco sees sustainability and reporting efforts reflected into leading AA MSCI ESG rating

MSCI is a leading global rating agency. Its ESG rating is designed to measure a company’s resilience to long-term, industry material environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks. The ratings range from leader (AAA, AA), average (A, BBB, BB) to laggard (B, CCC). Barco’s first assessment in 2015 resulted in a BBB rating, which was improved the following year to A. The new step-up to AA is a nice reflection of Barco’s efforts in the sustainability domain, including the increased transparency and reporting, and recognizes Barco as a leader in managing the most significant ESG risks and opportunities.

A shift towards sustainable solutions

The upgrade from an A to AA rating is driven by improvement in the category “clean technology opportunities”. We not only have a structural strong investment-level in R&D (13% of our sales in 2020), but recent innovations also show significant positive environmental impacts. Energy-efficient technologies such as LED and laser light sources in projectors help customers realize a big drop in their power consumption and footprint compared to lamps. Barco also enables its customers to reduce their ecological footprint by offering solutions that limit their travel needs. Our weConnect virtual learning solution, for example, offers an in-classroom experience to remote students, taking away the need to physically move to the campus. This is especially interesting for corporate education, in which employees often traveled the globe to attend a training.

Another great example are our hybrid solutions, including ClickShare Conference. They were designed to facilitate collaboration between people in the office and homeworkers – a hot topic in times of lockdowns Also simulation solutions (enabling e.g. full-fledged flight training without planes taking off or consuming kerosene) contribute to Barco’s ability to let customers shrink their ecological footprint. Also the introduction of our Barco ECO label, which encourages R&D to include environmental thinking into every step of the design process, makes sure we couple great customer value with ecodesign.

A maturing strategy

“Improving our MSCI ESG rating to AA proves that Barco’s sustainability strategy is gaining momentum”, says Jan De Witte, CEO at Barco. “I see it as an important focus point, and it is increasingly becoming part of our company DNA. These progressive efforts are not only visible in our product designs and corporate decisions, but also in our reporting. All these things together are clearly appreciated by the professional rating agencies, and rewarded with a rating that puts us in the top 12% of our industry!”

About Barco

Barco designs technology to enable bright outcomes around the world. Seeing beyond the image, we develop visualization and collaboration solutions to help you work together, share insights, and wow audiences. Our focus is on three core markets: Enterprise (from meeting, classroom and control rooms to corporate spaces), Healthcare (from the radiology department to the operating room), and Entertainment (from movie theaters to live events and attractions). In 2020, we realized sales of 770 million euro. We have a global team of 3,300 employees, whose passion for technology is captured in 430 granted patents.

For more information, visit us on www.barco.com, follow us on Twitter (@Barco), LinkedIn (Barco), YouTube (BarcoTV), or like us on Facebook (Barco).

© Copyright 2021 by Barco