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ADR-0009: GICS classification for pilot institutions

Status: Accepted Date: 2026-05-20 Supersedes: — Superseded by: —

Context

Hard-exclusion flag evaluation (ADR-0008) applies to every institution regardless of sector. For financial institutions, evaluation happens through scraper-driven data (BankTrack, BoCC, PAX). For non-financial institutions, no authoritative free dataset exists that maps company identity to GICS sector and enables programmatic flag evaluation.

The four non-financial pilot institutions are Amazon, Unilever, Caterpillar, and IKEA (Ingka Holding). Each needs a GICS classification to answer:

  • Does the fossil fuel flag trip? (Energy sector, or specific fossil-fuel sub-industries)
  • Does the weapons flag trip? (Aerospace & Defence sub-industry, if the institution is a controversial weapons producer)

GICS (Global Industry Classification Standard) is the S&P/MSCI framework. The classification has four levels: sector (2-digit), industry group (4-digit), industry (6-digit), sub-industry (8-digit).

Decision

GICS classification for pilot non-financial institutions is hand-mapped and stored in the institution table's four GICS code columns:

gics_sector_code          CHAR(2)   -- e.g. '25' Consumer Discretionary
gics_industry_group_code  CHAR(4)   -- e.g. '2550' Retailing
gics_industry_code        CHAR(6)   -- e.g. '255040' Specialty Retail
gics_sub_industry_code    CHAR(8)   -- e.g. '25504010' Broadline Retail

The gics_classification lookup table holds label text for each code.

Mappings applied (migration 005, verified 2026-05-20)

Institution Sector Sub-industry Notes
Amazon.com, Inc. Consumer Discretionary (25) Broadline Retail (25504010) Reclassified from "Internet & Direct Marketing Retail" in March 2023 GICS revision.
Unilever PLC Consumer Staples (30) Personal Care Products (30202010) Primary segment by revenue. Unilever has multiple product exposures; Personal Care chosen as dominant.
Caterpillar Inc. Industrials (20) Construction Machinery & Heavy Transportation Equipment (20106010) Primary business.
Ingka Holding B.V. (IKEA) Consumer Discretionary (25) Home Furnishings (25202020) Private company; GICS technically applies to listed equities. Proxy mapping by business activity. Documented under private_company: true in scraper_config_json.

Codes stored as TEXT to preserve leading zeros. Labels verified against official GICS structure documentation (S&P/MSCI, 2024 revision).

Storage location

Classification is in the four dedicated institution table columns, seeded in migration 005. This differs from an earlier draft that proposed using scraper_config_json — the dedicated columns are a better fit given that GICS already had a first-class schema presence via the gics_classification lookup table.

Flag evaluation for non-financials

Flag Evaluation logic
Fossil fuel gics_sector_code = '10' (Energy) → tripped. None of the 4 pilot non-financials are Energy sector; all render clear.
Weapons gics_sub_industry_code = '20101010' (Aerospace & Defence) → tripped if also a controversial weapons producer (no GICS sub-industry maps directly to cluster munitions or landmines). None of the 4 pilot non-financials are in Aerospace & Defence; all render clear.

"Clear" is a positive evaluation outcome, not "no data." GICS classification is data. The flag has been evaluated against it and did not trip.

Refresh cadence

Hand-update only. GICS reclassifications are infrequent and announced by S&P/MSCI. The Amazon reclassification (March 2023) is the most recent example for these institutions.

Consequences

Positive

  • Non-financial rows on the institution index now render fossil fuel and weapons flags as "clear" (green chips) rather than "no data" (grey chips).
  • The four GICS levels stored in the DB support the peer-group ladder (v0.5) without additional lookups.
  • Hand-mapping is auditable and version-controlled in migration 005.

Negative

  • GICS technically applies to listed equities; applying it to IKEA (private) is a proxy. Documented via private_company: true in scraper_config_json and in the table above.
  • Manual refresh creates a risk of staleness if a pilot institution is reclassified and the migration is not updated. Mitigated by: reclassifications being rare, and the pilot set being small enough to monitor manually.

Neutral

  • If the pilot expands to additional non-financial institutions, each needs a hand-mapped GICS entry. This is acceptable at pilot scale; programmatic GICS lookup from a data vendor (Bloomberg, Refinitiv) is a v1.5+ option.

Open items

  1. Sector-varying pillar weights. blend_weight currently has no sector scoping; non-financials use bank weights (E=0.40, S=0.30, G=0.30) as a v0.5 default. Sector-specific weighting using GICS sector code is v0.6 work.
  2. Proxy mapping for IKEA. The private-company proxy is noted but not formally validated. If the pilot expands to include more private companies, revisit whether GICS is the right framework or if an alternative taxonomy (e.g. NAICS) is more appropriate for unlisted entities.

References

  • ADR-0008 (hard-exclusion flags) — GICS-based evaluation is the non-financial path for both fossil-fuel and weapons flags
  • Migration 003 (GICS table schema), Migration 004 (non-financial seeds), Migration 005 (pilot institution seeds including GICS codes)
  • GICS structure 2024: S&P Global / MSCI public documentation