Istanbul - The launch of the Index comes after many months of preparation including a joint workshop held with the SSE in January 2014. Borsa Istanbul is one of the five founding Partner Exchanges of the SSE initiative. The CEO of Borsa Istanbul recently spoke about the new Sustainability Index at the SSE 2014 Global Dialogue, held in Geneva 14 October.

The companies that will be included in BIST Sustainability Index will be those meeting the minimum criteria, determined by Borsa Istanbul in cooperation with Ethical Investment Research Services Limited (EIRIS).

With the Index, companies are offered a performance evaluation instrument for improvement and determining new targets, as well as strengthening their corporate transparency, accountability and risk management skills regarding sustainability issues.

By promoting companies that adopt sustainability and corporate governance principles, the Index will also allow investors to prefer such companies.

Another purpose of the Index is to improve the understanding, knowledge accumulation and practices regarding environmental, social and governance issues among Turkish companies, particularly those traded on Borsa Istanbul.