S&P excludes Twitter, Walmart, Equifax and other companies from its index

S&P Global Inc. said on Wednesday that it has kicked out well-known companies and added others to its sustainable version of its S&P 500 index leader, which will impact the growing volume of benchmark-pegged investment.

After rebalancing the S&P 500 ESG index this year, the New York rating agency is now excluding Equifax Inc. EFX and ViacomCBS Inc. USA: VIAC USA: VIAC for placing in the bottom quarter of environmental, social and governance scores among S&P 500 members. He also kicked Twitter US:TWTR for having a low score under the United Nations Global Compact.

S&P said it replaced Walmart Inc. WMT, 0.12% with Costco Wholesale Corp. COST, -0.95% because its ESG score fell lower than industry peers.

Other notable companies excluded from the S&P were Clorox Co. CLX, Ford Motor Co. F, Nordstrom Inc. JWN, 5.07% and Southwest Airlines Co. JWN, 5.07%, but S&P said they did qualify based on their ESG performance, but were not selected because their scores were lower than their industry peers.

S&P companies added to the index include American Airlines Group AA, Royal Caribbean Cruises RCL, and DTE Energy Co. DTE,

BlackRock predicts that sustainable investment in exchange-traded and index funds will grow to $1.2 trillion by 2030. It says there are currently about $220 billion in such funds.