Shauna joined the BD team at Integrum ESG in 2021, having previously worked in similar roles within Fintech companies. She holds a BA in English and New Media Studies from the University of Limerick, Ireland.
How ESG Data Funding and Provider Rationalisation Are Reshaping Asset Management.
In 2025, the question of who should pay for ESG data and research shifted from a theoretical debate to a practical and increasingly urgent challenge for asset managers.
Regulatory pressure, particularly linked to MiFID II requirements on research payment and cost transparency, forced firms to reassess how ESG inputs are funded, disclosed and governed across jurisdictions. What had previously been treated as a specialist sustainability cost became a visible component of broader investment and research budgets.
This prompted a wider recognition that ESG data can no longer sit solely within sustainability functions. Instead, it is increasingly treated as part of the core data stack, supporting investment decision-making, risk management and regulatory compliance.
As a result, decisions around ESG data sourcing and funding moved away from individual teams and into enterprise-level data and governance discussions.
One clear outcome of this shift in 2025 was consolidation.
Many asset managers had accumulated multiple ESG data and ratings providers over time. While this approach offered breadth, it also resulted in overlapping coverage, inconsistent outputs and duplicated spend across regions and strategies.
By the end of the year, the inefficiency of this model became increasingly difficult to justify, particularly as ESG data was embedded more deeply into regulated investment processes and client reporting.
Two themes are now shaping consolidation decisions across global asset management firms. These are increased scrutiny of ESG budget ownership and the operational complexity created by fragmented provider stacks.
Budget ownership moves into focus
2025 marked a turning point in how firms approached ESG data budgets.
Historically, ESG data and ratings were funded through a mix of sustainability budgets, investment research allocations and central data spend. This fragmented approach obscured true costs and made it difficult to link ESG data expenditure to measurable value or regulatory necessity.
Many firms found formal mechanisms such as Research Payment Accounts operationally complex, leading them to absorb costs internally without clear attribution. This exposed a structural issue. ESG inputs were often treated as discretionary despite being embedded in investment decisions, risk frameworks and regulatory reporting.
As regulatory expectations intensified, particularly around research cost transparency and client disclosure, ESG data funding became harder to isolate from core investment governance.
Multiple providers increase complexity
At the same time, reliance on multiple ESG data providers increased operational complexity.
Differences in methodologies, taxonomies and update cycles made internal comparisons more difficult and raised concerns around continuity in proprietary models and regulatory disclosures. In some cases, switching providers risked disrupting historical data series or triggering additional validation requirements.
These challenges slowed decision-making even where consolidation was clearly needed from a cost, governance or efficiency perspective.
Consolidation is no longer driven primarily by cost reduction.
Instead, asset managers are prioritising alignment. ESG data must support investment processes, risk oversight and regulatory reporting consistently across regions and asset classes.
This has increased demand for integrated providers that can support multiple use cases through a coherent data model rather than fragmented point solutions. At the same time, ESG data budgets are increasingly shifting toward central or enterprise data functions, reflecting how widely ESG inputs are now consumed across organisations.
Centralisation supports stronger governance, reduces duplication and enables more consistent decision-making. As regulatory scrutiny increases, providers’ ability to clearly map data to regulatory frameworks and support audits, disclosures and assurance processes has become a key differentiator.
In 2026, consolidation is expected to focus less on headline savings and more on control, continuity and regulatory confidence.
Asset managers are likely to approach provider changes in phases, mapping existing data points to new providers and running parallel systems where necessary to manage transition risk and enable meaningful comparison.
Early involvement of legal and compliance teams will remain critical to avoid delays linked to regulatory reporting, client disclosures or prospectus updates. Timing changes outside major reporting cycles combined with strong integration capabilities, clear documentation and responsive service support will be essential to executing consolidation without undermining internal or client confidence.
As ESG data becomes embedded across investment, risk and compliance functions, treating it as core infrastructure and aligning governance and budgets accordingly will increasingly distinguish firms prepared for sustained regulatory and investor scrutiny.
Asset managers reviewing their data budgets should:
Examine how ESG data is sourced, governed and funded including clarity of budget ownership and controls over duplication
Assess whether ESG data is supported by a rationalised provider stack rather than fragmented point solutions
Prioritise firms using integrated, regulation-ready data platforms that support investment, risk and disclosure requirements consistently across regions
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