Relying on physical data across the whole value chain, the NEC provides a snapshot of an activity’s net environmental contribution and can be aggregated at company, portfolio, or index level. The NEC has the following key features:
- Life Cycle Analysis: it analyses the environmental impact of a product or service throughout its life cycle. It captures the impact of the full value chain using life cycle assessments based on physical data.
- Final Use: the NEC does not simply look at how a product or service is made; it also looks at who buys it. This allows the NEC to assess the full environmental impact.
- Relative metric: it was designed to enable cross-sector comparisons for all economic activities.
- Global: it can be applied to any region, company size, sector, and asset class.
- Bottom-up: it begins with the detailed analysis of a product or service, then aggregates to business units, and ends with the entire value chain at company, portfolio, or index level.
The NEC covers the full spectrum of economic sectors through 17 frameworks which encompass different value chains. Each framework has been designed to cover one or more functionalities (travelling, eating, drinking, housing, …). The NEC methodology has been applied and adapted to each of the activities covered by the 17 frameworks: Apparel & Textile, Appliances, Basic Materials, Building & Real Estate, Chemistry, Electricity, Finance, Food & Beverage, Fuel, Healthcare, Heat, Household & Personal Care, IT & Telecom, Mobility & Transport, Waste, Water, Wood & Paper.
The full NEC methodological design is freely available on our website: https://www.nec-initiative.com/methodology/
Additionally,
although the NEC can be applied following a forward-looking approach, its standard analysis is backward-looking.
We apply 2 different and complementary calculation processes:
- An automated process, based on FactsSet’s sectorial and geographic data (RBICS and GEOREV)
- A tailor made – fully human computed process, based on issuers’ public reports
These approaches are framed with a transparent criterion called DPL (Data Precision Level) that indicates the level of granularity of input data:
- DPL #1 – Sector average – Sources : FactSet RBICS & GeoRev
- DPL #2 – Intermediate – Sources : FactSet RBICS & GeoRev
- DPL #3 – Standard – Sources : FactSet RBICS & GeoRev
- DPL #4 – Enhanced (human improvement) – Sources : FactSet RBICS & GeoRev + issuers’ public reports
- Premium – Tailor made, fully human computed – Sources : issuers’ public reports
DPL #1 to #3 NEC scores are updated monthly (could be technically done more frequently).
DPL #4 and #5 are updated on a yearly basis, as when issuers publish their annual report.
Our scores are based on publicly available data. They are unsolicited.
In June 2026:
- The NEC database evaluates 49,000 international issuers
- With an analysis history of between 2 to 12 years for each issuer
- Premium NEC scores represent 85%(1) of STOXX 600 and 74,5%(1) of MSCI World indices.
The page https://www.nec-initiative.com/our-solutions/ details the different products and services developed and marketed by NEC Initiative. In terms of price list:
- NEC database => prices of the annual subscription are based on 2 main criteria: the size of the universe (i.e. a number of issuers) and the amount of the Assets under Management to which the NEC scores will be applied.
- Expert user licence => the price of the annual licence is based depending on the amount of the Assets under Management to which the NEC will be applied.
- NEC scores on demand => pricing is based on a fixed annual licence (whatever the size of the client and the number of NEC scores requested) and a fixed cost per NEC computed
Want to know more about our pricing? Contact us at hello@nec-initiative.org.
(1) Percentages indicated in weight.