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Predicting ESG Ratings by Machine Learning and Analyzing Influencing Factors by XAI

Published: 17 April 2024 Publication History

Abstract

This study examines the role of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) management in corporate strategy, particularly focusing on predicting ESG ratings with machine learning. Given the diverse ESG evaluation criteria employed by global rating agencies, there's a need for clear guidelines to facilitate effective ESG management. The research aims to develop an ESG rating prediction model utilizing a triennial compendium of Korean corporate financial data. This process involves a comparative analysis of linear models, tree-based models, and neural network-based models. Additionally, this study explains the importance of various variables by applying SHAP, one of the XAI techniques. The results indicate that XGB is the most effective, achieving an 85.1% F1 score in ESG rating predictions. By understanding how financial factors impact ESG ratings, companies can develop more effective ESG strategies, forming an essential foundation for sustainable growth.

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ICSIM '24: Proceedings of the 2024 7th International Conference on Software Engineering and Information Management
January 2024
179 pages
ISBN:9798400709197
DOI:10.1145/3647722
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 17 April 2024

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Author Tags

  1. ESG ratings
  2. Financial Data
  3. Machine Learning
  4. SHAP
  5. XAI

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