Watch CEO Sylvain Forté discuss SESAMm’s solutions for corporations focused on supply chain and client reputational risk monitoring during an interview with FF News at FinovateEurope last March.
Watch the full recording:
Watch CEO Sylvain Forté discuss SESAMm’s solutions for corporations focused on supply chain and client reputational risk monitoring during an interview with FF News at FinovateEurope last March.
Watch the full recording:
Paris, September 16th, 2025 – Clarity AI and SESAMm, two pioneers in AI-driven sustainability and risk analysis, today announced a partnership to enhance ESG controversy monitoring in private markets, giving investors unprecedented insights into millions of non-listed companies.
Private markets account for ~$22 trillion in assets under management (AUM), but remain significantly less transparent than listed firms when it comes to sustainability and reputational risks. By combining Clarity AI’s end-to-end sustainability analysis platform with SESAMm’s advanced controversy detection, investors will gain broader, deeper insights into companies that have historically been hard to assess. This lack of visibility creates added challenges for asset managers and financial institutions, particularly as they work to comply with regulations such as SFDR and CSRD.
Through the partnership, Clarity AI’s comprehensive coverage of both public and private companies will be enriched by SESAMm’s real-time controversy data on millions of additional private entities. SESAMm’s multilingual large language models analyze content from over 4 million sources in 100+ languages, surfacing potential red flags such as human rights violations, corruption, and environmental breaches, even in hard-to-assess, non-listed firms.
“SESAMm's technology leads the industry in detecting ESG controversies within private companies. Through our partnership with Clarity AI, we are now bringing this powerful capability directly to investors globally, ensuring they have a full picture of the risk in these markets,” said Sylvain Forté, CEO and co-founder of SESAMm.
“At Clarity AI, our mission is to bring transparency to sustainability, wherever capital flows,” said Daniel González, Global Partnership Director at Clarity AI. “This partnership is a breakthrough for private markets, where opacity has long hindered investors’ ability to monitor ESG risks. By combining SESAMm’s controversy detection with Clarity AI’s end-to-end sustainability platform, we are giving investors the most comprehensive view of both public and private companies. That means stronger due diligence, faster monitoring, and greater confidence in meeting evolving regulatory demands, all in one place.”
This collaboration reinforces Clarity AI's offering for private markets, now including environmental metric estimations for 2.3 million non-listed companies. Together, both firms are taking a significant step toward closing the information gap between public and private markets, equipping asset managers, private equity firms, and financial institutions with actionable insights to better understand reputational and sustainability risks, while supporting due diligence, risk monitoring, and regulatory compliance.
Clarity AI is the leading sustainability technology company, delivering data-driven insights to investors, companies, governments, and consumers. Its AI-powered platform offers flexible access to advanced analytics, supporting use cases from portfolio management and research to regulatory reporting, strategic planning, and consumer applications. Trusted by clients managing over $70 trillion in assets, Clarity AI also powers sustainability intelligence through integrations into leading investment platforms such as BlackRock Aladdin, SimCorp or Caceis. The company operates globally, backed by top-tier minority investors including BlackRock, Softbank, and Visa.
SESAMm is a global leader in controversy data, leveraging advanced large language models and generative AI to uncover ESG, reputational, and supplier risks in seconds. Our AI-powered platform surfaces real-time insights, even in low-disclosure markets, on millions of companies and infrastructure projects, supporting more informed decisions, enhanced due diligence, and regulatory alignment at scale. We work with leading firms, including Carlyle, Warburg, Natixis, RBI, Sustainable Fitch, Oddo, and others. SESAMm has raised $50M from renowned investors and operates across four continents.
Learn more at www.sesamm.com.
Discover unparalleled insights into ESG controversies, risks, and opportunities across industries. Learn more about how SESAMm can help you analyze millions of private and public companies using AI-powered text analysis tools.
In October 2022, this multinational integrated energy and petroleum company found itself in the crosshairs of two non-government organizations (NGOs), accusing it of "exploiting a gas field used to manufacture kerosene used by Russian planes in their bombings in Ukraine," according to the French daily Le Monde. The accusations expressly point out the 16 March 2022 strike, which killed around 600 civilians taking shelter at a Mariupol theatre.
The company? TotalEnergies.
The NGOs? Razom We Stand (Ukraine) and Darwin Climax Coalitions (France).
Also, in October, TotalEnergies posted a third-quarter net profit amid these allegations. "The French group reported an adjusted net income of $9.86 billion, compared with $4.77 billion for the same period in 2021 and $9.8 billion in the second quarter of this year," per Reuters.
Should investors and asset and portfolio managers be concerned? Is this one instance of allegations a nothing burger, or is it a sign—one of many red flags—to evaluate? Let's find out in this edition of Alternative Data Trends: TotalEnergies.
Company polarity and mentions volume
In the last year, mentions of TotalEnergies have gradually increased, spiking in March 2022. The spike in mentions coincides with a dip in the company's sentiment. These abrupt changes occurred when news broke about a lawsuit targeting TotalEnergies, claiming that the oil and gas group misled the public in its rebranding campaign, and a former French presidential candidate, Yannick Jadot, accused TotalEnergies of being complicit in war crimes.
After the spike in controversies in March 2022, TotalEnergies's web mentions continued to increase. And as a reflection of the mentions volume increases, the company's polarity decreases, moving in the direction of negative sentiment. News events triggering these movements include the legal case for allegedly fuelling Russian bombers and refinery strikes over wages.
ESG risks
A screening of TotalEnergies's ESG risks uncovers a similar trend. For example, our platform detects an increase in social risks as early as January 2022. This signal coincides with the company's exit from Myanmar because of human rights abuses.
Environmental-related mentions volume
Let's take a closer look at TotalEnergies's environmental risks, specifically for general environmental strategy, climate change and atmospheric pollution, and biodiversity. The topic of climate change and atmospheric pollution takes the largest share of mentions. Web data driving this volume include:
Social-related mentions volume
TotalEnergies's social risks reveal even more controversies, looking at human rights, human capital, and customer relations topics. Human rights and human capital topics almost equally dominate topic mentions. Controversies highlighting the human rights topic include:
Human capital topic controversies include:
Governance-related mentions volume
Finally, let's look at TotalEnergies's governance risk, specifically within topics for influence strategy and communication, corruption, and board of directors (executive and company management). The influence strategy and communication topic dominates the mentions volume. These controversies relate to greenwashing, such as:
We only scratched the web data surface for information on TotalEnergies, but even with this overview, you can probably see a pattern. Should investors, asset managers, and portfolio managers be concerned about the latest allegations against TotalEnergies? Maybe. At the very least, the data shows you should dig into the research and ask more questions to mitigate any risks in your portfolio companies.
SESAMm is a leading NLP technology company serving global investment firms, corporations, and investors, such as private equity firms, hedge funds, and other asset management firms, by providing datasets or NLP capabilities to generate their own alternative data for use cases, such as ESG and SDG, sentiment, private equity due diligence, corporation studies, and more.
For questions, access to the full report, or to request a TextReveal® demo, contact us here:
The aerospace and defense industry is essential to global technology and transportation, playing a crucial role in maintaining international security and connectivity. However, this sector faces intense scrutiny due to its significant impact on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. Amidst challenges like safety lapses and whistleblower revelations, stakeholders are increasingly relying on advanced AI technologies to gain insights into potential controversies. Such technologies have enabled a deeper understanding of the complex ESG issues that permeate the industry, revealing not only the specific challenges faced by companies like Boeing but also providing a broader view of the sector's commitment to corporate responsibility and sustainability.
This article explores the aerospace industry and its ESG challenges, backed up by a case study of industry giant Boeing. It also explains how we used SESAMm’s AI-powered tools to detect these controversies beforehand.
This article is a preview of the webinar entitled "The Boeing Scandal: Can AI Predict Controversies Before Traditional Tools?" based on SESAMm's proprietary research. Sylvain Forté, CEO and Cofounder, and Emna Abid, Research and Analytics Team Lead at SESAMm, will lead the webinar and will share SESAMm's findings in detail on the Boeing case and the use of AI to detect these types of controversies ahead of time.
The top market players in the aerospace and defense industry command 8.3% of the overall market's online mentions. This sector is increasingly scrutinized for its ESG practices amidst technological advancements and global policy shifts.
Our study processed our large data lake to identify key aerospace players: Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Airbus, and Boeing, from 2015 onwards. It found a surge in online mentions, especially after Boeing's plane crashes post-2018. Both Airbus and Boeing saw increased attention, highlighting the competitive and evolving aerospace industry, where online presence correlates with market position shifts and significant events.
Polarity, indicating a company's mix of positive and negative opinions, ranges from -1 to 1. A zero score shows equal positive and negative sentiment. Brands with high e-reputation often score above 0.5.
The aerospace market experiences significant highs and lows. Lockheed Martin has seen a positive impact from new contracts and technological advancements, particularly between 2016 and 2018, boosting its reputation and value. In contrast, Boeing faces significant challenges due to safety lapses, including 737 MAX crashes, legal issues, and whistleblower claims, negatively affecting its perception and highlighting the industry's vulnerability to reputational risks.
The aerospace industry has faced increasing scrutiny over its ESG practices. Among the key players, the American aerospace company Boeing has been prominently featured in media discussions, not only due to its market distinction but also because of its ESG challenges that have sparked significant controversy.
The word cloud displays key topics about Boeing, particularly the 737 Max controversies, including safety issues and FAA oversight. "737 Max," "Boeing," "safety," "death," and "FAA" are the main terms that show their prominence in discussions. The visualization also touches on "lawsuits," "Senate hearings," and "missed inspections," indicating the wide range of concerns surrounding Boeing's regulatory, safety, and ethical challenges.
These incidents underscore the aerospace industry's urgent need for reforms to prioritize safety and ethics over profit. SESAMm's TextReveal® platform plays a key role in detecting such ESG controversies early by analyzing vast amounts of data and helping stakeholders understand and address the intricacies of corporate accountability and regulatory compliance.
TextReveal’s web data analysis of over five million public and private companies is essential for keeping tabs on ESG investment risks. To learn more about how you can analyze web data or to request a demo, reach out to one of our representatives.
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