Zurich -- SAM has started this year’s review for the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes by inviting the 2,500 largest corporations of the Dow Jones Global Index and all companies belonging to the Dow Jones STOXX 600 Index to participate in the annual assessment. The new DJSI members for the year 2003/2004 will be announced on September 4, 2003.

In the course of the annual review, companies are invited to respond to a SAM questionnaire covering economic, environmental and social criteria. The deadline to respond is June 6, 2003. The general criteria, which make up 60% of the SAM questionnaires, are applied to companies across all sectors. Industry-specific questions that reflect companies’ unique sustainability challenges make up the remaining 40%.

The questionnaire has undergone an overhaul in early 2003 to reflect best-practice and new sustainability developments. Questions looking at issues including corporate governance corruption and bribery, issue management, knowledge management, organizational learning, as well as talent attraction and retention have been added or refined. Likewise, industry-specific criteria on issues such as access to drugs in the healthcare sector, fuel-efficiency in the automotive industry, and sustainable agriculture for food companies account for recent developments of sustainability trends. The weighting of each general criteria will be published in September 2003.

All companies that participate in the review will receive a report free of charge illustrating their corporate sustainability performance. The reports of companies leading their market sectors in terms of sustainability will be published on www.sustainability-indexes.com. Information on the current review including a sample questionnaire can be found on the assessment website www.sam-group.com/assessment2003.

Note to the editor:
Launched in 1999, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are the world’s first global indexes tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. Based on the cooperation of Dow Jones Indexes, STOXX Limited and SAM they provide asset managers with professional and objective benchmarks to manage sustainability portfolios. More than 40 DJSI licenses are currently held by asset managers in 14 countries to manage a variety of financial products including actively and passively managed funds, certificates and segregated accounts. In total, they presently manage 1.7 billion EUR based on the DJSI. A list of the DJSI licensees is available at http://www.sustainability-indexes.com/licensing/current.html.

The DJSI World family covers the top 10% of the biggest 2,500 companies in the Dow Jones Global Index in terms of economic, environmental and social criteria. As a benchmark for European sustainability investments, the DJSI STOXX family covers the leading 20% of the companies in the Dow Jones STOXXSM 600 index. The selection of index components follows a rule-based process defined in the DJSI Guidebooks and is verified by an external auditor. Full details about the design philosophy, review methodology and index components are freely available at www.sustainability-indexes.com.

SAM Indexes GmbH
Zollikerstr. 60, 8702 Zollikon-Zurich, Switzerland
Phone +41 1 395 28 28, Fax +41 1 395 28 50
info@sustainability-indexes.com, www.sustainability-indexes.com

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