FTSE Russell vs SET ESG Ratings, explained.
From 2026 the Stock Exchange of Thailand retires its own ESG Ratings and adopts FTSE Russell ESG Scores. The two are not the same tool with a new logo — the method, the scale, and the language that counts all change. Here is the side-by-side, plus what it means for your next disclosure.
- 01SET ESG Ratings: retired after 2025
- 02FTSE Russell: 0–5.0, from public English disclosure
- 03No questionnaire — what’s published is the assessment
The comparison.
Ten dimensions where the retired SET ESG Rating and the incoming FTSE Russell ESG Score differ — the ones that actually change how a Thai listed company should disclose.
| Dimension | SET ESG Ratings (retired) | FTSE Russell ESG Scores (from 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Status | The former domestic benchmark — retired after the 2025 assessment year. | The domestic benchmark from 2026, alongside the new FTSE4Good Thailand Index (launched 6 July 2026). |
| Output / scale | Letter bands (AAA, AA, A, BBB…). | A numeric score from 0 to 5.0. |
| How it’s scored | A questionnaire the company submitted to SET (self-assessment). | No questionnaire. Scored from your public disclosure only — there is nothing to fill in. |
| Language that counts | The Thai-language submission carried the weight. | Your public English-language disclosure. The document a London analyst reads is what earns the score. |
| Who scores it | SET, domestically. | LSEG / FTSE Russell, under a global methodology applied to ~15,000 companies worldwide. |
| Structure | E/S/G dimensions with minimum gates per dimension. | 3 pillars, 14 themes, exposure-weighted — your sector sets both the weighting and the bar you must clear. |
| Climate scoring | Questionnaire / process-driven. | The TPI Management Quality staircase (Level 0–5) plus carbon performance versus peers. |
| Coverage | Companies that qualified (265 in 2025, ~70% of market cap). | Assessed from public disclosure — a genuinely thin theme is dropped from the average, not zeroed. |
| What it feeds | ThaiESG-fund eligibility (through December 2026). | FTSE4Good Thailand index inclusion and global investor ESG screens. |
| The catch for Thai issuers | A strong Thai filing was usually enough. | A strong Thai filing rendered into weak English quietly loses the score. |
What the transition looks like.
The transition, answered.
01What is the difference between SET ESG Ratings and FTSE Russell ESG Scores?+
SET ESG Ratings were Thailand’s domestic ESG assessment — letter bands (AAA–CCC) based on a questionnaire a company submitted to the Stock Exchange of Thailand. From 2026 the SET adopts FTSE Russell ESG Scores instead: a 0–5.0 numeric score calculated by LSEG/FTSE Russell from a company’s public, English-language disclosure, with no questionnaire. The most consequential difference is language: under the old rating the Thai filing carried the weight; under FTSE Russell the English edition of your disclosure is what gets read and scored.
02Why does FTSE Russell scoring favour English disclosure?+
FTSE Russell assesses roughly 15,000 companies worldwide from their public disclosure, and its analysts work primarily from English-language materials. There is no questionnaire and no chance to explain — what is published in English is the assessment. For a Thai company, ESG work that exists only in the Thai 56-1 One Report can read as absent to the rater, even when the underlying performance is strong.
03Do we need to redo our 56-1 One Report for FTSE Russell?+
No — the Thai 56-1 One Report remains your legal filing to the SEC. What changes is that you now also need an English edition that is accurate, complete and framework-legible, mapped clause-by-clause to the Thai so the two never drift. Othello builds both from one engagement (the Clause-Mapped Bilingual One Report), so the regulator and the rater read the same facts.
04When does the SET ESG Rating stop and FTSE Russell begin?+
2025 was the final year of the SET ESG Ratings as the domestic benchmark. From 2026 the SET publishes FTSE Russell ESG Scores, and the FTSE4Good Thailand Index launched on 6 July 2026. The legacy SET ratings continue to govern ThaiESG-fund eligibility through December 2026, so both matter briefly during the transition. Always confirm exact status against SET and SEC notices for your reporting year.
05What FTSE Russell score do Thai companies need?+
The addition threshold for the FTSE4Good series for a Thai (Advanced Emerging) issuer is an ESG score of around 2.9 out of 5.0, assessed on public English-readable disclosure. In our experience the gap between a company’s real ESG performance and its score is usually not missing work — it is work that exists only in Thai, or numbers published without the methodology tags and base years a rater needs to trust them.
Turn the change into a plan.
Readiness Navigator
Five questions → your sequenced FTSE 2026 roadmap.
Regulatory Tracker
SET→FTSE, TSRS, One Report & CBAM in one table.
Clause-Mapped One Report
File in Thai. Score in English. One engagement.
State of Thai Climate Disclosure
How the FTSE score is built — 10 chapters, free.
File in Thai. Score in English.
We build the bilingual disclosure that reads correctly in Thai for the SEC and scores well in English for FTSE Russell — clause-mapped, terminology-locked, under NDA.
