From 2026, the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) is replacing its in-house SET ESG Ratings with FTSE Russell ESG Scores — aligning Thai listed companies with a global benchmarking standard used by international investors and index providers. For boards and IR teams, this is not a cosmetic change: it shifts how your ESG performance is judged, and it raises the stakes on the quality of your public, English-language disclosure.
What is changing in 2026
The SET has run its own SET ESG Ratings (formerly THSI) for years. Starting in 2026 it transitions to FTSE Russell’s ESG Scores model. All companies in the SET100 Index are assessed, and the transition is open to other listed companies as well. The goal is to put Thai issuers on the same measuring stick that global funds already use when they screen and weight holdings.
866 SET- and mai-listed → FTSE3ESG pillars14Themes300+Indicators What is changing in 2026 The SET has run its own SET ESG Ratings (formerly THSI) for years.
FTSE Russell ESG Scores 2026 | SET-Listed GuideHow FTSE Russell ESG scoring works
FTSE Russell uses a three-tier structure: 3 pillars (Environmental, Social, Governance), 14 themes, and 300+ indicators. Thai companies are evaluated on roughly 125 indicators on average, depending on sector exposure. Crucially, FTSE Russell does not send questionnaires to companies. It scores you using publicly disclosed information only — gathered from your corporate reports, your website, and press releases.
Why English disclosure now decides your score
Because the assessment is built entirely on what you have published, anything that is missing, buried, or only available in Thai effectively does not count. A strong sustainability programme that is poorly disclosed — or disclosed only in Thai — will score below a weaker programme that is clearly and completely reported in English. In practice, your annual report and 56-1 One Report, sustainability report, and website ESG pages become the raw material for your FTSE Russell score. Accurate, complete bilingual (Thai–English) disclosure is now a direct scoring lever.
How this connects to IFRS S1/S2
The FTSE Russell transition runs alongside Thailand’s phased adoption of IFRS S1 and S2 sustainability disclosure standards (beginning with SET50 from 2027). Together they push in the same direction: more structured, investor-grade, financially material ESG disclosure — published clearly and in English. Companies that build their disclosure once, properly, can satisfy both.
What boards should do now
- Run a disclosure gap analysis against the FTSE Russell indicators relevant to your sector.
- Publish what you already do — much of the score gap is undisclosed activity, not missing activity.
- Make every ESG disclosure available in English, on the same timeline as the Thai version.
- Align the sustainability narrative across the One Report, sustainability report, and website so the data is consistent everywhere FTSE Russell looks.
How Othello International helps
We combine ESG advisory with ISO 17100-certified bilingual translation in one workflow — so your disclosure is both strategically complete and accurately presented in English. Our FTSE Russell readiness service maps your disclosure against the methodology, identifies the highest-impact gaps, and delivers board-ready, bilingual reporting before the 2026 assessment window. Talk to our team for a readiness review.
Related: For background on the rating system FTSE Russell is replacing, see SET ESG Ratings explained.
What “publicly disclosed only” really means for your score
The single most consequential feature of the FTSE Russell model is that it does not send a questionnaire. There is no form to complete, no engagement window in which to submit missing evidence, and no opportunity to explain verbally what your company does. Analysts score what they can find in your public record — the One Report, the sustainability report, the corporate website, and formal disclosures — and nothing else. An activity your company genuinely performs but has never published simply does not exist for scoring purposes. This inverts the instinct many Thai issuers built up under questionnaire-based ratings, where a well-prepared submission could carry an otherwise thin public disclosure. Under FTSE Russell, the public disclosure is the submission.
In practice this means a large share of the gap between a Thai company’s real ESG performance and its FTSE Russell score is not a performance gap at all — it is a disclosure gap. Governance practices that are followed but not described, policies that exist internally but are not posted, and data that is collected but not reported all cost points that could be recovered simply by publishing what already happens.
Where Thai companies most often lose points
- Thai-only disclosure. Material information published only in Thai is effectively invisible to a global scoring team working in English — the most common and most fixable loss.
- Governance under-reporting. Board oversight of sustainability, remuneration links, and risk processes are often practised but thinly described, leaving easy governance points on the table.
- Unstructured data. Metrics buried in narrative prose, rather than presented in clear, comparable tables, are harder for analysts to locate and credit.
- Fragmented disclosure. When the website, the One Report, and the sustainability report tell slightly different versions of the same story, analysts credit the weakest, most conservative reading.
Why bilingual accuracy is now a scoring lever
Because the score is assembled entirely from English-readable public information, the quality of your Thai-to-English disclosure moves directly onto the scorecard. A strong sustainability programme described in vague or inconsistent English will score below a more modest programme described precisely. Loose translation causes quiet, cumulative damage: a policy commitment softened into a general aspiration, a quantified target rendered without its figure, or a technical term translated so its meaning shifts. None of these look dramatic in isolation, but across 100-plus indicators they add up to a materially lower score than the company deserves.
This is why treating translation as a final, clerical step is a mistake for SET-listed issuers. Under ISO 17100, disclosure is translated against a controlled ESG glossary and reviewed by a second qualified linguist, so a target reads as a target and a governance practice reads as a governance practice in both languages. Publishing the English on the same timeline as the Thai — not months later — ensures the scoring team sees a complete, current record when the assessment window opens.
Sequencing the work before the 2026 assessment
The efficient order of work is disclosure-first, translation-integrated. Begin with a gap analysis against the FTSE Russell indicators relevant to your sector, so effort concentrates where points are actually available. Publish the undisclosed-but-real activity next, since that is the fastest score recovery. Then align the narrative across the One Report, the sustainability report, and the website so a single consistent story appears everywhere FTSE Russell looks — and produce that story bilingually from the outset, rather than translating a finished Thai document under deadline pressure. Companies that build disclosure this way once tend to satisfy both the FTSE Russell methodology and the phased IFRS S1/S2 requirements from the same body of work.
Get FTSE Russell-ready before the 2026 window
Othello International combines FTSE Russell readiness with ISO 17100-certified bilingual translation, mapping your public disclosure against the methodology and closing the highest-impact gaps in both languages. Explore our ESG advisory services or contact our team for a readiness review.
Related ESG guides
- GRI vs SASB vs IFRS S1/S2: ESG Reporting Frameworks Explained (2026)
- 56-1 One Report Deadline 2026: Thailand Filing Dates & Bilingual Requirements
- Carbon Credits in Thailand 2026: T-VER, Premium T-VER and What Corporates Need to Know
- What Is ESG? A Practical Guide for Thai Companies (2026)
- CSRD After the Omnibus: What Thai Suppliers to EU Companies Actually Need to Provide (2026)
Related Othello services
📘 Free resource: Explore The FTSE 2026 Playbook Library — Othello’s ESG disclosure playbook plus focused editions for Thai banks, energy, property, healthcare, technology and more.
Related services from Othello International
Othello International is a Bangkok-based bilingual (EN↔TH) technical translation and ESG advisory firm. Related specialist services:
- ESG ratings submissions — FTSE, MSCI, S&P, SET
- ESG advisory — ratings, climate, materiality
- ESG disclosure translation — IFRS S2, GRI, FTSE-ready
See what your English disclosure is scoring
From 2026 FTSE Russell scores SET-listed companies from public English disclosure — no questionnaire. Run the free Gap Audit and find the points you are leaving on the table.
Run the free Gap AuditSee where your English edition is losing FTSE points.
A free Gap Audit maps your published English disclosure against FTSE Russell’s 14 themes — and shows exactly which gaps are quietly costing you points, index inclusion and investor attention.
