Recital 39

(39)In order to address the risks of conflicts of interest, some activities should be offered from separate legal entities. However, some of those activities could be offered from within the same legal entity where the ESG rating provider concerned has sufficient measures and procedures in place to ensure that each activity is exercised autonomously and to avoid creating potential risks of conflicts of interest in decision-making within its ESG rating activities. Such derogation should not be possible for credit rating activities and for auditing and consulting activities. Consulting activities include developing sustainability strategies and strategies to manage sustainability risks or impacts. With respect to the activity of the provision of benchmarks, ESMA should assess whether the measures proposed by the ESG rating provider are appropriate and sufficient regarding the potential risks of conflict of interest. Such an assessment should take into account whether the benchmark administrator offers benchmarks that pursue sustainability objectives and in particular EU Climate Transition Benchmarks and EU Paris-aligned Benchmarks in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 of the European Parliament and of the Council ¹⁴ .