Intensity Score

SESAMm Intensity Score

The Intensity Score is a proprietary metric, ranging from 1 to 5 (low to high severity). It is used to assess the impact of a specific Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) controversy, adjusted for the entity's responsibility. It is calculated at the Event level.

The Intensity Score is produced by supervised machine-learning models trained on large annotated datasets of ESG controversies. The models are validated before deployment and monitored thereafter through our quality-assurance process.

How it's built

The Intensity Score is built in two steps:

Step 1: Structured severity

The severity of the event is assessed along two axes, 'Reversibility' and 'Corporate & Stakeholder Reach'. Each axis is scored on a four-level scale:

  • Reversibility: Evaluates the permanence of the adverse impact:
    • Level 4: Irreversible: For example, fatalities or permanent ecosystem damage
    • Level 3: Long-term: Systemic harm requiring multi-year recovery
    • Level 2: Short-term: Remediable within a normal reporting cycle
    • Level 1: Procedural: Technical non-compliance or projected risk
  • Corporate & Stakeholder Reach: Quantifies the "Economic and Social Breadth" of the controversy. It evaluates the reach of the negative event across three dimensions:
    • Level 4: Widespread Exposure
      • Impact on the order of 100 km² or more, transboundary river systems, or multiple sovereign states.
      • Affects roughly 1,000 individuals or more (employees, customers, or community members).
      • Typically a systemic crisis, for example national-level economic disruption or global product recalls.
    • Level 3: Extensive Exposure
      • Impact on the order of 10 to 99 km², or a significant regional area (for example a bay or province).
      • Affects roughly 100 to 999 individuals.
      • Typically a major stakeholder impact, for example regional supply-chain failures or significant sectoral disruption.
    • Level 2: Limited Exposure
      • Impact on the order of 1 to 9 km² (for example a local stream or city district).
      • Affects roughly 10 to 99 individuals.
      • Typically a moderate local impact, for example financial or operational friction limited to a specific site or city.
    • Level 1: Internal/Minor Exposure
      • Impact below about 1 km², or restricted to the entity's own facility.
      • Affects fewer than about 10 individuals.
      • Typically an internal impact, for example minor administrative errors or localized neighborhood disturbances.

The two axes are combined through a structured-severity mapping that yields a severity value.

Two principles govern that mapping, in line with the UN Guiding Principles approach to identifying severe adverse impacts: permanence of harm takes priority over breadth, so an irreversible impact weighs more heavily than a widespread but remediable one; and severe, irreversible events are designed not to fall into low-severity tiers even where their reach is limited, so that isolated but grave events remain visible.

Certain aggravating factors, such as impacts on indigenous communities or strictly protected areas, increase the assessed severity.

Reversibility
Corporate & Stakeholder reach 4: Irreversible 3: Long-term 2: Short-term 1: Procedural
4: Widespread Exposure Very Severe Severe Severe Moderate
3: Extensive Exposure Very Severe Severe Moderate Moderate
2: Limited Exposure Severe Moderate Minor Minor
1: Internal/Minor Exposure Moderate Moderate Minor Minimal

Step 2: Company responsibility

The continuous Structured Severity Score is then adjusted for the entity's role in the event on a continuous scale, ranging from:

  • Direct: The adverse impact is directly caused by the entity's own corporate assets, products, or management decisions.
  • Indirect : The impact occurs within the entity's upstream/downstream value chain or third-party business relationships, or the entity provided enabling financing/infrastructure.

Final Output

Combining severity with responsibility produces the final 1 to 5 Event Intensity.

At both stages the models output continuous values, and the methodology uses continuous interpolation rather than rigid categorical rounding, so that small differences in the inputs do not cause artificial jumps in the result.

Event Intensity
Structured Severity/company role Direct Indirect
Very Severe 5 4
Severe 4 3
Moderate 3 2
Minor 2 1
Minimal 1 1

Examples

Lens A: Reversibility

  • Level 4: Irreversible
    • A severe industrial accident resulting in employee fatalities (Link) or the permanent destruction of a strictly protected wildlife habitat (Link).
  • Level 3: Long-term
    • A chemical leak requiring a multi-year groundwater cleanup (Link), or a major ransomware attack exposing sensitive medical records that requires years of identity monitoring (Link).
  • Level 2: Short-term
    • A union warehouse strike that halts operations for two weeks (Link), or a localized, non-toxic wastewater spill that is fully cleaned up within the month (Link).
  • Level 1: Procedural
    • Failing to submit an annual executive pay disclosure on time (Link), or a minor administrative delay in renewing a factory's air quality permit (Link).

Lens B: Corporate & Stakeholder Reach

  • Level 4: Widespread Exposure
    • A global product safety recall affecting millions of consumers (Link), or an offshore oil spill covering hundreds of kilometers of international coastlines(Link).
  • Level 3: Extensive Exposure
    • A regional supplier factory shutdown affecting hundreds of workers (Link), or Agricultural or industrial sewage runoff that disrupts an entire provincial fishing bay or river system. (Link) .
  • Level 2: Limited Exposure
    • A toxic workplace culture issue isolated to a single city office branch (Link), or a loud equipment noise violation affecting a localized neighborhood district (Link).
  • Level 1: Internal/Minor Exposure
    • An internal billing error affecting under 10 corporate clients (Link), or a minor trash bin fire confined entirely within a company warehouse (Link).

Company Responsibility

  • Direct Responsibility
    • The company's own operations team and senior managers ignored internal engineering risk assessments showing an unacceptably high probability of static liquefaction, choosing to bypass immediate structural safety measures until the tailings dam collapsed (Link).
  • Indirect Responsibility
    • A company's third-party raw material supplier is caught using forced labor or clearing protected forests (Link).