Synergies and Gaps in ESG, Climate Disasters, and Social Inequality: A Literature Review

Abstract

This study examines how Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks intersect with climate-related disasters and social inequality. While ESG practices are promoted to enhance corporate accountability and resilience, their implications for disaster risk reduction and equity remain underexplored. We conduct a structured literature review across four intersections: ESG–disasters, ESG–inequality, disasters–inequality, and their combined nexus. This systematic review analyzes 269 peer-reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2024 using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and bibliometric co-word mapping to identify thematic clusters across ESG, disaster, and inequality research. Findings show that ESG has been widely analyzed in risk disclosure, green finance, and accountability but less in addressing inequality. Disaster–inequality studies highlight vulnerable groups at heightened risk, yet few works integrate all three areas. This review highlights the need for greater integration among ESG, disaster, and inequality frameworks. Ultimately, ESG should be understood not only as a reporting tool but also as a driver of equitable resilience.

1. Introduction

The social costs caused by climate change continue to rise, and climate change itself is accelerating due to human influence, with its effects occurring more frequently and intensely. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) 2025 report estimates that disaster costs reach around $2.3 trillion annually [1]. Empirical data also substantiates that these costs are incurred proportionally more by vulnerable groups. The social minorities and low-earning groups have greater adverse impacts, while low-recovery-resource-access populations restore their livelihoods for longer durations compared to rich populations, as experienced with the widening recovery gap [2,3,4]. In addition, the health impacts are also serious, with socially vulnerable people experiencing health effects such as heat illnesses, respiratory illnesses, water-related illnesses, food system impacts, insect-related diseases, and mental health effects [5].

Under these circumstances, as the need for society to take measures against climate change becomes increasingly urgent, discussions have begun on Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) as a means of transforming corporate behavior in an economically rational manner and achieving both commercial success and a reduction in climate change risk. Although ESG is built on ethical and code of conducts of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), it interprets these rules with a data-driven and accountability view. In the past, the debate on CSR is much focused on moral legitimacy and voluntary action, but ESG redefines corporate responsibility as a measurable climate change resilience metric. This change indicates the shift from moral persuasion to performance verification and marks a transition in corporate sustainability thought.

ESG is a sustainable business model emphasizing environmental responsibility, social impact, and strong corporate governance. Globally, ESG has become a key standard for non-financial reporting, signaling a company’s resilience, ethical standing, and long-term growth potential—essential for attracting international investment and entering new markets. Despite its existing implementations of ESG being still largely focused on the areas of climate and environment, its application for disaster resilience and social disparity has not received much attention from scholars and policymakers so far.

Disasters and inequality are, however, intimately interwoven: disasters worsen existing socio-economic inequalities, and inequality itself makes societies more vulnerable to disasters. Therefore, this study aims to confirm the original purpose of ESG and verify what is necessary to strengthen its positive impact on serious issues such as disaster prevention and the correction of social inequality.

Specifically, this paper undertakes a systematic literature review that breaks down the ESG–disaster–inequality nexus as pairwise intersections (ESG–disaster, ESG–inequality, disaster–inequality) prior to synthesizing the triple nexus. In doing so, it explains at which points scholarly advancement has been made, at which points gaps remain, and how ESG paradigms can potentially be utilized as instruments of governance for equitable resilience.

This research aligns with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by advancing knowledge on how ESG frameworks contribute to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). By mapping the intersection of ESG, disasters, and inequality, the study supports the integration of private-sector accountability into global resilience goals.

The remainder of this paper is organized as following structure: Section 2 presents the methodological design and PRISMA-based selection process; Section 3 reports the bibliometric and thematic analysis results; Section 4 discusses findings across four thematic clusters; Section 5 provides integrated policy recommendations; and Section 6 outlines limitations and future research directions.

2. Methodology

We compiled a dataset of relevant literature from four thematic groups, corresponding to different combinations of the three focal topics: Group A (ESG + Disaster), Group B (ESG + Inequality), Group C (Disaster × Inequality), and Group D (ESG + Disaster + Inequality). This four-cluster logic follows the intersectional governance approach, where each intersection (ESG–Disaster, ESG–Inequality, and Disaster–Inequality) represents a unique relational dimension of sustainability challenges. The four intersections ensure a complete coverage without redundancy and form a MECE framework. The triadic cluster (ESG–Disaster–Inequality) identifies the under-theorized confluence zone where environmental accountability, social justice, and governance resilience coalesce. These groups were defined through a PRISMA-based screening process as shown in Figure 1, and publication records for each group were obtained from curated Comma-Separated Values (CSV) files. Following PRISMA guidelines, the review proceeded through four stages: [1] identification of records in Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect using ESG, disaster, and inequality keywords; [2] screening for relevance based on titles and abstracts; [3] eligibility filtering by language (English) and peer-reviewed status; and [4] inclusion of 269 studies for full-text synthesis. Duplicates were removed, and the final corpus was analyzed through bibliometric co-word clustering to ensure systematic coverage. The datasets were merged and filtered by publication year to include only the period 2015–2024. Duplicate entries across groups were removed to ensure each unique article was counted once in the aggregated data. Using this consolidated corpus, we computed the annual publication counts overall and for each group individually, which form the basis of the publication trend analysis (see Figure 2). The selection of PRISMA was driven by its ability to promote transparency, reproducibility, and rigor for systematic reviews. The time frame of 2015–2024 was chosen due to ESG studies surging following the Paris Agreement of 2015 and the diffusion of the Sustainable Development Goals globally.

To ensure transparency and reproducibility, we employed Boolean search strings combining the three core domains of inquiry: ESG, climate-related disasters, and social inequality. The final Scopus and Web of Science query was: (“ESG” OR “Environmental, Social, Governance”) AND (“disaster*” OR “climate risk*” OR “natural hazard*”) AND (“inequalit*” OR “social justice” OR “vulnerability”). Articles were included if their title, abstract, or keywords involved at least two of the three thematic domains (≥2 key themes). Screening followed the four PRISMA phases including identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion. The final sample of 71 articles (20 ESG–Disaster, 20 ESG–Inequality, 20 Disaster–Inequality, 11 Triple Nexus) resulted from this coding and reflects saturation rather than arbitrary rounding.

To capture the intellectual landscape of this literature, we conducted a keyword co-occurrence (co-word) analysis of the aggregated dataset. We derived keywords from the article titles, abstracts, and author keywords, and then cleaned the list by deleting generic words and condensing synonyms (e.g., considering “CSR” as “corporate social responsibility”). We thus arrived at a network of about 269 frequent keywords. We used a modularity-based clustering algorithm to find the largest thematic clusters of keywords co-appearing together in the co-word network. Six strong clusters (with some small clusters) emerged, and these reflect significant research themes connecting ESG and disasters, ESG and poverty, disasters and poverty, and so forth. To display these clusters, we mapped them into a two-dimensional thematic map of the centrality (connection to other clusters) of each cluster against its density (internality of cohesiveness). In this quadrant diagram (Figure 3), the clusters are sorted into four theme types—we label these as Motor, Basic, Niche, and Declining/Emerging—independent of the thematic text they constitute, and they are based purely on their relative centrality and density in the whole research network.

This structure directly addresses the research question: PRISMA-driven categorization provides systematic coverage for the ESG–disaster–inequality nexus, and bibliometrics and thematic mapping illuminate mature and underdeveloped areas alike.

However, limitations also remain. The dataset includes only peer-reviewed English-language sources and so might not cover region-specific contributions published in other languages or grey literature like policy or NGO reports. Additionally, keyword harmonization and cluster interpretation are matters of subjective judgment and might influence thematic categorization. However, the pairing of PRISMA rigor with bibliometric mapping creates a balanced and reproducible foundation for understanding the development of this interdisciplinary domain.

3. Bibliometric Analysis

3.1. Publication Trends by Thematic Group (2015–2024)

Annual publication output of ESG, disaster, and inequality issues tripled from 2015 to 2024, showing very rapidly accelerating scholarly interest (Figure 2).

The aggregated number of new publications annually increased by over a factor of three from 2015 (59 publications) to 2024 (137), with particularly brisk increases after 2019. During the initial portion of the interval (2015–2018), output was low (on the scale of 40–60 annually), but by 2022 the annually aggregated sum already exceeded 100. After a short stagnation in 2023, production attained the decade high in the following year, 2024. The strong upward trend mirrors intensifying scholarly interest in the interplay of sustainability (ESG factors), the handling of disasters, and social disparities.

Figure 2 breaks down these publication counts by thematic group A, B, C, and D, revealing marked differences in their trajectories. Group C (disaster × inequality) dominated the field’s output throughout the decade, contributing the largest share of publications each year. For example, in 2024 Group C alone produced 107 papers—far more than the other groups. Group C’s output was already substantial in 2015 (51 publications) and grew steadily to consistently high levels, indicating that the literature linking social inequality with disasters has been prolific and remains a central focus.

Conversely, Group A (ESG + disaster) and Group B (ESG + inequality) comprised very low publication figures in the mid-2010s but showed remarkable growth in the early 2020s. Group A, which had just 1–3 yearly publications from 2015 through 2018, grew to about a dozen yearly publications by the years 2022–2024. Group B, from the low-single-digit yearly papers (e.g., 3–7 papers prior to 2019) climbed to 17 papers in 2024, its high point of the interval. The upsurge after the year 2019 indicates researchers grew progressively to include ESG considerations in the examination of disasters and social inequities, which also falls in line with the increased ESG discourse of the 2020s.

Concurrently, Group D (combining ESG, disasters, and inequality collectively) also regularly trailed the field with the low end of papers. During most years, it registered no greater than one paper, which it topped in the year 2020 by just two papers. Such low output translates to the fact that very few studies so far have examined all three of these themes in combination. The ongoing deficit for Group D identifies an interdisciplinary opportunity: while pairwise intersections (particularly the former disaster–inequality nexus of Group C) are thoroughly covered, systematic ESG–disasters–inequality inquiries are the exception, and thus an emerging area of future research.

3.2. Thematic Cluster Analysis (Keyword Co-Occurrence)

The keyword co-occurrence analysis identified six key clusters of research themes and presented them in a thematic quadrant map (Figure 3). Each cluster in the map lies in the space of its centrality (degree of connectedness of the theme to other themes) and density (internal development of the cluster). The visualization categorizes the clusters into four theme types of research—Motor, Basic, Niche, and Declining/Emerging—corresponding to high and low centrality and density values. Each theme category offers an insight into the role and maturity of these topics in the overall ESG–disaster–inequality research landscape.

The bibliometric mapping reflects inductive theme emergence, while interpretation draws deductively on corporate governance and sustainability theories. This hybrid mode ensures that co-word clusters are not treated as isolated empirical artifacts. Instead, the clusters are recognized as an evolving conceptual systems within ESG frameworks under systemic risk.

Motor themes (high centrality, high density): These are well-established, main areas of research which are internally consistent and broadly connected to other areas of study. They are the field’s “motor” driving forces. For instance, one motor cluster revolves around health inequities and social disparities, connecting public health outcomes (e.g., disease mortality, impacts of COVID-19) to social disparities. Another motor theme involves environment, health, and justice, studying the ways in which environmental risks (pollution, exposures to danger) impact disadvantaged groups beyond their proportion of the population. Such motor themes are established and influential: they contain strong internal consistency and broad applicability throughout the literature, and thus they are key mainstays of research in this area.

Basic themes (high centrality, low density): These are general but loose subjects which are strongly relevant in numerous investigations. Basic themes interconnect broadly in the network (high centrality) but contain varied subtopics, hence lower internal cohesion. An example includes the intersection of climate change and disaster risk management and sustainability issues (including ESG principles). Such a cluster interconnects climate-driven disasters and ESG issues and resilience or risk reduction, spanning a broad-based set of issues. Another basic theme includes public health and social determinants, connecting various socio-economic factors and health outcomes. These basic themes constitute the foundation threads of the field—numerous studies cover them—but by virtue of breadth, they are not so internally focused. Cross-country evidence by Mbanyele and Muchenje [6] illustrates this basic theme, linking firms’ climate change exposure, risk management practices, and corporate social responsibility commitments.

Niche themes (low centrality, high density): These are clusters of specialized, close-knit research niches having strong focus internally but relatively small numbers of connections to other themes. One example is a cluster of socio-economic inequality and access, focusing on narrow areas like income or insurance coverage and the impact these variables have on outcomes of inequalities. Such a cluster is very cohesive (the researchers in this niche adhere to a similar set of concepts) but an “island” in the thematic map, having relatively small connections to larger ESG or even disaster-related areas. Such niche themes may reflect nascent research specialties or subfields of extreme specialization. They are strongly developed in their own narrow area but have not influenced the field in any broader way yet.

Declining or Emerging themes (low centrality, low density): These are the topics which are seemingly marginal in the present scene, having low connectivity to the other topics and low internal development themselves. They may reflect new areas of research which are not fully established, or, alternatively, older areas which are losing steam. An example of this quadrant is a cluster of research about vulnerable groups and risk perception. Here, there are papers talking about the perception and mitigation of the risk of disasters by disadvantaged people, but the cluster has low connection to the other themes and low internal coherency, manifesting an initial or incipient stage of development or a fragmented state of development. These low-centrality, low-density themes need scrutiny because they are potentially new frontiers which need development, or, alternatively, areas of fading scholarly interest.

Generally, this thematic quadrant examination sheds light on the organization of scholarship in the field. The motor themes (e.g., health inequities, environmental justice) are propelling the intellectual discussion with central, established influence. Basic themes (such as climate/disaster risk management and social determinants of health) are broad unifying strands behind numerous studies, though diffusely so. In the meantime, the niche themes prosper as compact enclaves of knowledge, and the emerging/declining themes feature areas at a crossroads—either rising new challenges or fading areas of concern. By tracing these axes, the examination reveals which issues are the field’s engines and which are minimally integrated and indicates possible areas of neglect and opportunities for new research.

4. Literature Review on ESG, Disaster, and Inequality

To delineate the complex interlinkages of ESG more clearly, disaster risk, and social inequality, our research divides the literature review into four sub-sections. Each sub-section canvases existing studies featuring one of the pairwise interlinkages—ESG and disaster (Section 4.1), ESG and inequality (Section 4.2), and disaster and inequality (Section 4.3)—before moving to the triple nexus of the three dimensions (Section 4.4). This structure will allow us to orderly trace the progression of academic debates along a wide range of interlinkages, identify where research has been comparatively mature, and highlight where gaps remain substantial. Through this stepwise procedure, we aspire to establish a clear foundation for understanding how ESG frameworks may facilitate equity-oriented disaster resilience and systematize where integration of the three domains is still lacking. The qualitative synthesis in Section 4 builds directly on the bibliometric clusters identified in Figure 3, where Motor Themes (ESG and Risk Disclosure), Niche Themes (Climate–Health Nexus), and Emerging Themes (Social Vulnerability and Equity) structure the subsequent discussion.

4.1. ESG and Disaster Risk: Insights and Gaps

The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework was initially designed as a tool to assess corporate sustainability and transparency, primarily applied in investment and managerial contexts. As global climate change has led to more frequent extreme weather and natural disasters, the pressure on enterprises and society in risk management has intensified, and disaster risk—external and beyond managerial control—has gradually entered the ESG discussion. This is because disaster risk not only disrupts corporate assets and operational continuity but also affects investor confidence and social trust. Examining disaster risk within the ESG framework therefore offers new perspectives for corporate sustainable management and external communication.

To ensure evidentiary strength and comparability, this study employs empirical methods (e.g., event studies, panel regressions, and difference-in-differences) to analyze corporate ESG performance, risk disclosure, market reactions, and governance changes under natural disasters or extreme climate events, while maintaining diversity and representativeness in disaster types, industries, and regions. Within a unified framework, we focus on carbon disclosure and adaptation under the Environmental (E) dimension, climate governance and the embedding of disaster policy under the Governance (G) dimension, infrastructure, supply-chain resilience, and resource allocation, the actual degree of integration of disaster risk management into sustainability reporting and the applications and limitations of ESG tools across different disaster contexts. Overall, variation in ESG–disaster performance can be traced to firm-level preparedness, sectoral exposure, and regulatory density. Companies operating in hazard-prone industries tend to develop more advanced governance mechanisms, while those with weaker disclosure obligations show symbolic compliance. These findings suggest that national regulatory environments and disaster histories play a decisive role in shaping the depth of ESG–disaster integration, explaining the heterogeneity observed across cases.

Under the Environmental (E) dimension, ESG not only drives emissions-reduction policies and investments in disaster prevention and mitigation, but also requires adaptive strategies to enhance community disaster resilience in the face of extreme events induced by climate change such as floods, typhoons, and earthquakes. Liu et al. [7] show that firms with stronger ESG performance exhibited greater organisational resilience during an extreme heat event, underscoring the role of ESG in adapting to climate-related hazards. A study of Chinese listed firms on the short-, medium-, and long-term impacts of earthquakes on corporate ESG performance finds that, in the short term, environmental and social performance improve, whereas in the medium to long term, social and governance performance improve [8]. This suggests that, in the aftermath of disasters, firms initially channel resources toward environmental restoration and adaptation to resume production and respond to external scrutiny. Using China’s 2022 extreme heat as the empirical setting, another study shows that firms with higher ESG ratings displayed stronger market resilience following the event, with effects more pronounced among non-state-owned enterprises and firms in low-carbon pilot cities. This indicates that, under differing policy environments, adaptive actions on the environmental dimension can amplify ESG’s positive buffering effect against disaster shocks. Collectively, these findings suggest that post-disaster investment and recovery actions related to carbon disclosure and adaptation should place greater emphasis on building long-term environmental resilience—e.g., green infrastructure investment, ecosystem restoration, and low-carbon technology adoption—which not only mitigates firms’ post-disaster adverse impacts but also strengthens the broader community’s adaptive capacity.

On the other hand, the Governance (G) dimension is equally crucial in disaster contexts. Disasters often expose vulnerabilities in corporate governance, primarily in terms of information transparency and institutional improvement. Evidence from U.S. firms located near disaster zones shows that, post-disaster, these firms significantly increase the transparency of ESG disclosures, especially on social and governance topics [9]. Such changes are not necessarily driven by intrinsic aspirations to improve governance; rather, they are often responses to investor demand, with managers adjusting ESG disclosures in line with shifts in investor risk perceptions—thus leading to governance information improvements under external pressure. By contrast, the case of the Morandi Bridge collapse in Italy shows that corporate ESG disclosure policies did not change significantly; the structure and content of reports evolved only marginally as part of routine progression, rather than as a systematic response to the disaster [10]. This contrast indicates heterogeneity in post-disaster governance responses—ranging from passive increases in transparency to inertia in maintaining the status quo. Moreover, firms with more mature governance structures tend to make more proactive E and S responses when facing disaster and climate risks, reflecting that governance effects are often time-lagged and context-dependent; over the medium to long term, they gradually improve through adjustments to organizational processes and accountability structures. Consequently, assessments of the G dimension should not stop at quantifying disclosure outcomes; they should examine whether firms possess effective risk-governance mechanisms. Furthermore, existing research focuses more on post-disaster disclosure and governance responses, while paying less attention to pre-disaster prevention (e.g., risk investments, mitigation infrastructure) and mid-disaster response (resource allocation and supply-chain resilience). Disaster risk should be embedded in board and management decision-making processes, with effective communication mechanisms established for employees, investors, and communities. Regulators and firms should jointly adopt disaster-scenario disclosure checklists and promptly update them after major events so that ESG can truly contribute to resilience building in disaster contexts.

Infrastructure, supply-chain resilience, and resource allocation are core issues in responding to disaster risk, yet research remains limited. In manufacturing, Hsu [11] finds that companies with higher levels of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) suffer smaller post-disaster performance losses, primarily via mechanisms of employee motivation and customer loyalty. This suggests that, even when supply chains are impaired, long-term investments in the S and G dimensions can facilitate faster recovery. At the urban scale, flood-resilience frameworks emphasize that only the integration of E (green infrastructure), S (social inclusion and infrastructure development), and G (transparent decision-making) can effectively address disasters; coordination between medical emergency services and transportation is also considered critical for resource allocation. From a sustainability-reporting perspective, whether disaster risk management is truly embedded in governance arrangements is equally crucial. Existing research suggests that merely mentioning disaster risks in reports is insufficient; what matters is institutionalization in practice. For example, explicitly disclosing targets and responsibilities for business continuity planning, recovery times for infrastructure and information systems, scenario analysis for major disasters, and early-warning and data-monitoring mechanisms all evidence substantive ESG-based resilience capabilities—helping firms maintain internal governance under disaster shocks while providing stronger trust foundations for employees, investors, and communities.

Regarding the role of ESG tools in disaster contexts, existing findings diverge across disaster scenarios. During COVID-19, firms with higher ESG scores performed more steadily, indicating that ESG information has some predictive power for long-term resilience. Conversely, in the face of catastrophic events, retail investors’ ESG awareness and preferences increased, yet short-term (five-day) returns were negative [12]. This suggests that, amid market uncertainty, ESG is treated as a risk proxy after disasters, but realized returns do not align. In addition, Naffa [13] finds that firms’ ESG management scores are negatively correlated with market performance during crises, hinting at a possible mismatch between ESG management levels and actual financial resilience. Therefore, the performance of ESG tools in disaster settings is jointly shaped by disaster type, time horizon, and regional context. For example, Adrian et al. [14] examine how drought-related natural disasters influence corporate tax avoidance behaviour, showing that disaster shocks can reshape firms’ fiscal strategies beyond formal ESG commitments. Firm-level evidence also suggests that disaster experience heightens risk salience and leads managers to expand ESG disclosure, especially regarding environmental and social performance [15].

Overall, although the role of ESG in disaster risk governance has attracted increasing attention, current research and practice remain insufficient. First, ESG disclosure and governance responses are largely concentrated in the post-disaster phase, with limited emphasis on pre-disaster prevention and resource allocation during the crisis, resulting in a resilience framework that lacks foresight. Second, corporate ESG performance in the context of disasters often shows short-term positive effects but diminishes in the medium to long term, indicating that ESG investment lacks sustained commitment in post-disaster recovery, particularly in extending from environmental restoration to systematic governance reform. Finally, the effectiveness of ESG tools varies across disaster scenarios: while positive buffering effects have been observed during pandemics or extreme heat events, there are also cases where ESG performance is misaligned with financial resilience in catastrophic events, reflecting the inadequacy of current ESG indicators in adapting to diverse disaster types and regional contexts.

4.2. ESG and Social Inequality: Corporate Responsibility and Equity Challenges

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting standards—such as the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures—have turned corporate responsibility from voluntary giving to standardized disclosure and investor stewardship [16,17]. Unlike CSR, which emphasizes moral responsibility and stakeholder legitimacy, ESG converts social and environmental values into quantifiable indicators that attract investor scrutiny. Classic CSR scholarship has long documented the structural challenges and constraints firms face when trying to integrate social responsibility into competitive markets [18], which helps to explain why ESG implementation often falls short of its equity promises. One the one hand, this change democratizes sustainability evaluation. On the other hand, this shift risks narrowing the normative scope of corporate responsibility to what can be measured. Thus, ESG can be understood as the institutional codification of CSR ideals through the logic of market accountability. Compared to traditional CSR, ESG promises clearer measurement and market discipline but risks privileging what is easy to measure at the expense of the more socially valuable ones [19]. New controversies thus center on whether ESG diminishes inequality—through equal pay and safer workplaces and transparent governance—or strengthens it through privileging resource-rich firms and regions. This review synthesizes evidence across three mechanisms that connect ESG and inequality: [1] protections of labour and wage fairness; [2] governance transparency and managers’ time horizons; and [3] environmental initiatives and green finance. It also analyses structural frictions—rating divergence, metrics bias, and symbolic adoption—that blur the distributive impacts of ESG.

Recent literature also explores ESG’s relationship with inclusion and labor ethics, emphasizing workforce diversity, wage fairness, and social disclosure as equity indicators. Studies show that firms with inclusive governance exhibit higher resilience in post-disaster recovery, bridging the ESG–Inequality nexus.

While ESG has emerged as a dominant framework for corporate accountability, scholars note tensions between its financial and social logics. The symbolic adoption of ESG can itself be a legitimacy strategy, which deflects responsibility without changing practices substantively. These practices pose the risk of channeling attention away from regulatory enforcement and may perpetuate inequality themselves. Recent research distinguishes between instrumental ESG-driven by investor risk concerns-and normative ESG-anchored in justice and equity objectives. Recognition of this tension sheds light on why responses from ESG to disasters and inequalities remain patchy across sectors and regions.

First of all, ESG’s Social pillar focuses on labour rights, workplace safety, inclusion, and fair pay—key levers to reducing both within-firm and economy-level inequality. But social outcomes depend on firms making meaningful changes rather than associative claims. In the garment business, where unequal value capture has been supported by exploitation of labour for centuries, experimental and survey evidence show that intangible, image-oriented announcements of labour-related CSR activities decrease credibility and trust, but verifiable, tangible commitments (such as living-wage policies and disclosure of third-party audits) improve evaluations and perceived legitimacy [20]. That is, superficial ESG disclosure does very little to benefit the lives of workers; improvement takes place when policies actually raise wages, expand bargaining power, and improve safety.

At the level of the global value chains, research on “social upgrading” highlights that fairness gains to labour and small producers depend on governance structures that direct value downstream [21]. Modelling work by Cao et al. [22] further shows that collaborative ESG due diligence between buyers and suppliers can reduce responsibility gaps and distribute compliance costs more fairly along the supply chain. Supplier development, long-term contracts and credible monitoring improve the likelihood that ESG standards help generate higher and more stable incomes for vulnerable participants, rather than concentrating rents at the top. This is in line with investor-facing evidence: market actors emphasize financially material ESG issues [19], that would marginalize complex, qualitative aspects of the dignity of work unless measurable and calculable (e.g., wage disclosure, accident rates). The literature implies that ESG’s “S” reduces inequality when it focuses on verifiable improvements in pay, safety and inclusion—and when purchasers and investors reward them rather than glossy narratives.

The Governance pillar defines distributional outcomes by restricting rent extraction, enhancing oversight, and extending time horizons. Evidence from Chinese bond markets indicates that stronger corporate social responsibility can improve firms’ access to unsecured debt financing, suggesting that lenders increasingly treat CSR as a form of risk mitigation [23]. A classic quasi-experimental paper demonstrates media scrutiny can discipline corporate abuse: companies subject to international media coverage were more likely to correct governance transgressions, acting through reputational and regulatory mechanisms [24]. Such “targeted transparency” mechanisms are reflected in sustainability reporting reforms. With a multi-country policy shock, a study discovers that compulsory corporate sustainability reporting fortifies internal controls and raises socially responsible management behaviors—such as employee training—with possible wage growth and safety spillovers [25]. These outcomes suggest disclosure can shift managerial attention from the short-term bottom line to long-horizon investment which matters for social welfare.

Similar research demonstrates why the shift is necessary: short-termism constrains investment in intangibles with social returns (skills, safety, community assets). While policies and shareholder stewardship that concentrate on multi-year horizons (e.g., long-term pay, active ownership) are associated with superior environmental and social outcomes [19]. The takeaway is that the “G” is more than a compliance add-on; it is the mechanism by which companies internalize stakeholder demands, reduce self-enrichment, and allocate resources to programs most beneficial for inequality.

Environmental pillar of ESG intersects with inequality because environmental harms disproportionately affect low-income communities, and green investment can create local co-benefits such as clean air, resilient infrastructure, eco-jobs. Corporate finance studies find that green bonds can shift firms’ capital allocation: issuers of green bonds increase environmental investment and environmental performance after the issue, consistent with restrictions on the use of proceeds and investor monitoring [26]. These mechanisms could plausibly support equity when environmental advantages come where the harms are most focused, and projects take a thoughtful job-quality and community approach.

However, the sharing of green capital and compliance costs is important. Without inclusive design, strict standards and reporting burdens can favor big companies and exclude SMEs and smallholders from premium markets—creating a risk of a two-level economy. Literature of the “just transition” hold that government and corporate action to mitigate and adapt to climate change must accompany worker retraining and community benefit to avoid regressive outcomes [27]. In the supply chain, social upgrading scholarship warns again that sustainability standards can raise producers up or leave them behind depending on whether purchasers invest in capability up-grading [21]. In reality, the implication is that greening procurement and finance must make access dependent not only on environmental indicators but also on social co-benefits that can be tested and measured (local job creation, wage minimums, safety), and hence aligning E and S.

However, even when firms act in good faith, system-level frictions can dilute the equity effect of ESG. Firstly, ESG rating variation is large: scope, metric, and weighting variation between providers induces “aggregate confusion,” weakening the relationship between scores and actual performance and enabling firms to look “good” on one rating but neglecting social substance [28]. Secondly, investors’ demand for comparable, numeric indicators may lead attention to move from challenging qualitative social issues (e.g., freedom of association) to easy metrics (e.g., carbon intensity) unless robust social metrics emerge [19]. Thirdly, firms may engage in symbolic ESG—policy and disclosure but no actual operational change—most notably in reputationally vulnerable industries; evidence from fashion demonstrates that stakeholders spot that type of symbolism and punish credibility and leave inequality unaddressed [20].

The literature supports conditional optimism: ESG reduces inequality when governance reform broadens the horizons of management and enforces accountability [25], when environmental finance is associated with enforceable use-of-proceeds and with social co-benefits at the local level [26], and when the social pillar is centered on verifiable improvements in workers’ remunerations, safety, and inclusion [20,21]. To deliver that promise, three design priorities keep recurring. First, improve the measurability of social outcomes (e.g., disclosure of the living wage, rates of injury, worker voice indexes) to allow investors to reward substance rather than signaling [19]. Second, reduce rating confusion through the explanation of scopes and weights and through the prioritizing of impact-relevant indicators [28]. Third, embed in green finance and procurement just-transition principles and supplier capability-building so that SMEs and weaker communities are not excluded from the sustainability dividend [21,29]. With these inclusions, ESG becomes not a box-ticking but an institutional connection between corporate strategy and social equity.

ESG–inequality outcomes are different because of institutional pressures and ownership structures. Firms embedded in stakeholder-oriented systems show stronger social inclusion commitments. In contrast, shareholder-dominated models emphasize disclosure over redistribution. Cross-country contrasts further indicate that labor and welfare regimes mediate whether ESG policies genuinely reduce inequality or merely enhance corporate reputation.

4.3. Disasters and Social Inequality: Vulnerability and Recovery Gaps

Disasters, whether triggered by natural hazards or human-made crises, do not affect all populations equally. Instead, they interact with pre-existing social vulnerabilities, such as gender, age, disability and migration status, thereby amplifying inequalities and undermining equitable recovery [30,31,32]. Studies have shown that recovery trajectories differ significantly across social groups, often leaving marginalized populations further behind [30,32,33,34]. Seven key areas of social vulnerability emerge: infrastructure, education, disability, ethnicity, age, gender and economic status.

Despite global policy frameworks such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 [35] emphasizing inclusivity, equity in recovery remains underdeveloped in practice. Recovery programs often prioritize efficiency and economic metrics while neglecting socially differentiated needs. Furthermore, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks, which are increasingly being adopted by corporations, rarely incorporate indicators that reflect social equity in disaster recovery.

This section builds on the identified gaps in recovery practices, such as the neglect of social groups, the lack of differentiated tracking, and the blind spots of ESG frameworks, before advancing policy recommendations. Drawing on recent scholarship and existing policy frameworks, it makes the case for the institutionalization of equity-centered recovery mechanisms.

The reviewed studies reveal that post-disaster inequalities persist not only because of uneven exposure but also due to institutional and governance asymmetries. Jurisdictions with participatory recovery mechanisms achieve more equitable outcomes than centralized systems. This explains why disaster responses in high-capacity welfare states reduce vulnerability faster, while market-oriented contexts reproduce pre-existing inequalities.

4.3.1. Neglect of Gender, Age, Disability, and Migrant Needs

Infrastructure and social vulnerability. Communities with poor infrastructure, particularly those in marginal areas close to bodies of water, face heightened risks. For example, block-level studies in China revealed that densely populated, low-income neighborhoods were disproportionately susceptible to the impacts of urban flooding due to inadequate infrastructure [36]. Similarly, research in Brazil showed that households in areas with weaker infrastructure were more vulnerable to prolonged power outages [37].

Education plays a dual role in vulnerability. On the one hand, disaster preparedness education increases awareness and adaptive capacity. Conversely, lower educational attainment correlates with a greater impact of disasters. For example, riverine communities in Bangladesh with lower levels of education experienced more severe losses during flooding, as knowledge gaps limited their ability to cope [33].

Both physical and mental disabilities can increase vulnerability. People with disabilities often encounter communication barriers in warnings and mobility issues during evacuations. Martins et al. [38] emphasize that disaster management frameworks which overlook disability perpetuate inequality rather than building resilience.

Ethnic minorities, migrants, the elderly and children are consistently identified as high-risk groups. New immigrants often encounter language and documentation barriers when trying to access aid, while elderly populations frequently lack mobility or consistent medical care [39,40]. Studies of drought in India reveal that marginalized caste and ethnic groups have slower recovery trajectories, demonstrating the intersection of social stratification and disaster exposure [41].

The impact of disasters on different genders is acute. Evidence from earthquakes suggests that more women than men die in these catastrophes, with the gender gap widening in events of high magnitude. Zapata-Franco and Vargas-Alzate [42] show how integrating gender perspectives into seismic risk assessment in Colombia can redirect resilience planning toward more equitable outcomes, illustrating what such integration could look like in practice. Furthermore, relief distribution often fails to consider women’s specific needs, with hygiene and feminine products frequently omitted from emergency aid packages. Qu [34] further highlights that women bore a disproportionate share of the caregiving and economic burdens during the crisis caused by the COVID-19 underscoring how crises reinforce gender inequality. In many countries, women are expected to care for and protect children, the elderly, and the family home. This hinders their ability to rescue themselves in the event of a natural disaster [43]. For instance, women’s unpaid caregiving responsibilities escalated during the UK’s response to the 2020–2021 pandemic, exacerbating existing gender inequalities [34].

Poverty remains a key vulnerability factor. Families with limited financial resources find it more difficult to rebuild their livelihoods after disasters. Spatial analyses in Brazil and Bangladesh demonstrate that households with low incomes located near rivers or on marginal land are most exposed and experience the longest recovery periods [33,37].

Taken together, these seven dimensions demonstrate that disaster vulnerability is socially constructed and multidimensional. Effective policy responses must therefore incorporate equity considerations into preparedness and recovery planning to prevent any group from being systematically disadvantaged.

4.3.2. Lack of Differentiated Tracking

Recovery monitoring mechanisms usually focus on aggregate statistics, such as GDP growth, housing reconstruction and restored infrastructure. However, these metrics can obscure the unequal pace of recovery experienced by different groups. For example, spatial analyses of drought recovery in West Bengal reveal the differential vulnerability of marginalized populations, demonstrating that recovery cannot be understood without social disaggregation [41]. Similarly, studies of urban flooding demonstrate that analyses at the level of individual blocks can reveal disparities in exposure and recovery [36].

ESG reporting has become central to how corporations and financial institutions demonstrate accountability in disaster contexts. However, ESG systems primarily focus on environmental impact, compliance, and governance structures. They rarely measure whether socially marginalized groups benefit equitably from recovery investments.

For example, resilience research emphasizes that community-engaged, equity-centered approaches are critical to sustainability [44], yet these outcomes are absent from standard ESG metrics. Consequently, corporations may claim “resilient recovery” by restoring business continuity without addressing disparities among workers, contract laborers, or low-income households.

4.4. Integrating ESG, Disaster, and Inequality: Toward an Equitable Resilience Framework

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks have emerged as key instruments in measuring corporate sustainability and guiding responsible investment. Originally designed to help firms internalize environmental externalities and improve corporate governance, ESG frameworks are increasingly expected to play a broader role in advancing societal resilience. However, their capacity to respond effectively to climate-related disasters, particularly in ways that count for underlying social inequalities, remains limited. This section explicitly connects the Motor, Niche, and Emerging clusters from Figure 3 to demonstrate where conceptual fragmentation occurs across ESG scholarship.

Disasters disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, such as those with lower income, insecure housing, or existing marginalization. However, these factors are often excluded from ESG evaluations. While climate change is now central to many ESG disclosures, the intersection between disaster risk, environmental vulnerability, and social inequality remains critically under-addressed. The following discussion examines the integration gaps across these domains and outlines systemic policy interventions to reposition ESG as a tool for equitable climate resilience.

Figure 3’s thematic clusters illuminate where integration failures occur. For example, the Health Inequities cluster remains disconnected from ESG discussions, reflecting a disciplinary gap between public-health and corporate-finance research. Similarly, the Social Vulnerability cluster aligns weakly with Climate Risk Disclosure, indicating that equity dimensions are often omitted from climate-finance models. Addressing these divides requires cross-disciplinary frameworks that merge ESG reporting metrics with social-justice indicators.

A review of recent academic work reveals that while each of these domains—ESG, disaster response, and social inequality—has received individual attention, studies addressing their intersection are rare and fragmented. For example, Pagano et al. [45] explore how traditional insurance mechanisms fail to adequately protect vulnerable populations from natural hazards. Their study, based on the Italian insurance context, demonstrates how information asymmetries between insurers and clients, especially regarding exposure and vulnerability, contribute to inequality in coverage. They suggest using ESG-aligned risk models to design more inclusive insurance policies, marking one of the few attempts to explicitly connect ESG mechanisms to both disaster risk and social equity.

Similarly, Owen et al. [46] examine catastrophic tailings dam failures and the lack of transparent disaster risk disclosure in the global mining sector. Their study emphasizes the importance of “situated risk,” a concept that captures both the physical hazard and the social vulnerability of surrounding communities. They argue that ESG disclosures should not simply account for environmental or technical risks but must also consider land use conflicts, indigenous rights, and political fragility, which are typically neglected in standard ESG reporting.

Huyck et al. [47] contribute to the discussion by introducing the Global Economic Disruption Index (GEDI), a tool designed to assess disaster-induced economic downtime. Although the GEDI framework includes ESG applications in theory, it is primarily used for evaluating supply chain continuity and financial resilience, rather than community-level social recovery. As such, it lacks integration with equity-oriented disaster metrics.

Other case studies further illustrate the disconnect between corporate ESG commitments and local disaster realities. In Diepsloot, South Africa, Bopape et al. [48] highlight efforts by private companies to build disaster resilience in informal settlements. In the casino sector, Guan et al. [49] show that post-disaster CSR reactions and disclosures are often driven by reputational pressure rather than by structural redistribution, reinforcing this disconnect. However, these efforts are framed through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives rather than formal ESG structures, making them vulnerable to fragmentation and inconsistent implementation.

A synthesis of the literature reveals three critical integration failures that limit the ability of ESG frameworks to meaningfully engage with disaster risk in a socially equitable way. These gaps are not merely technical oversights but structural deficiencies in how ESG frameworks are conceptualized, measured, and applied.

4.4.1. Fragmentation Across ESG Dimensions

In most ESG frameworks, the environmental, social, and governance pillars are treated as discrete domains rather than overlapping systems. At the sovereign level, Hasegawa et al. [50] demonstrate how ESG evaluations are incorporated into market risk management for government bond investments, yet these metrics are rarely linked explicitly to disaster vulnerability or social inequality. Similarly, Helliar et al. [29] map ESG risk exposures across mutual funds, but these portfolio-level measures seldom incorporate granular indicators of disaster vulnerability or distributional impacts on affected communities. Risk assessments typically isolate environmental exposure, such as flood zones or extreme heat, without factoring in the social vulnerabilities that determine the actual impact on affected communities. For instance, a company might disclose exposure to rising sea levels without acknowledging that its facilities are adjacent to informal settlements that lack drainage, insurance, or legal protection. This separation results in incomplete risk modeling and a failure to account for compounding effects.

The lack of intersectional data is a central barrier. Environmental disclosures may include carbon emissions or biodiversity impacts, but rarely contain indicators for displacement risk, income insecurity, or housing informality. As Huyck et al. [47] suggest, economic disruption indices have potential ESG applications, yet they are still skewed toward asset loss and business continuity rather than community-level harm. This technical separation sustains a false sense of resilience, especially in low-income geographies.

4.4.2. Insufficient Attention to Post-Disaster Inequality

ESG frameworks often emphasize risk avoidance and disclosure prior to disasters, but they fail to account for how inequalities intensify during the recovery phase. Post-disaster vulnerability, such as unequal access to aid, exclusion from insurance, or forced displacement, is rarely addressed in ESG ratings or investor assessments. This results in a narrowed understanding of resilience focused on infrastructure and continuity rather than human outcomes.

Battikh et al. [51] offer a striking example in their analysis of disaster response by ICT multinational corporations. Despite the global scope of these firms, their disaster aid is overwhelmingly concentrated in developed countries, with a declining share of support directed toward high-vulnerability developing regions. The geographic and economic biases embedded in these response patterns underscore how ESG mechanisms are still governed by investor proximity rather than vulnerability metrics. Without incentives to prioritize equitable recovery, ESG remains disconnected from actual disaster justice.

This underrepresentation suggests that ESG research has yet to evolve from firm-level resilience to system-level equity. Incorporating social vulnerability metrics into ESG disclosure could bridge this gap. Furthermore, it could help to transform ESG from a financial signal into a governance mechanism for equitable resilience.

4.4.3. Underdevelopment of Measurable Social Indicators

Among the three ESG components, the “S” remains the most ambiguous and underdeveloped. While companies are increasingly reporting on diversity, labor rights, and stakeholder engagement, there is no standardized approach to measuring how these factors intersect with disaster contexts. Metrics for displacement, informal housing conditions, or gendered vulnerability are absent in most ESG scorecards. The result is a symbolic or tokenistic treatment of social equity.

McDaniel et al. [52] demonstrate how corporate social responsibility narratives can be strategically deployed for reputation management, especially in politically sensitive industries such as tobacco. A similar concern arises in disaster contexts. ESG-aligned firms may emphasize environmental compliance while downplaying harmful social impacts, particularly those related to marginalized populations. Without enforcement mechanisms or third-party validation, the “S” remains a narrative tool rather than a governance instrument.

5. Policy Recommendations

Drawing on the previous analyses of ESG–disaster interfaces (Section 4.1), ESG–inequality correlations (Section 4.2), disaster–inequality vulnerability chains (Section 4.3), and structural integration gaps for all three areas (Section 4.4), this section integrates the dispersed recommendations into a unifying framework. Rather than presenting isolated proposals from each of the subsections, the succeeding policy orientations are classified under four related areas. As a whole, they make up a systemic agenda for integrating ESG with disaster risk governance while at the same time addressing ingrained social inequalities. Each recommendation presented below is directly derived from the thematic and bibliometric evidence identified in Section 4.1, Section 4.2, Section 4.3 and Section 4.4.

Table 1. Linkages between Analytical Findings and Policy Recommendations on ESG, Disasters, and Social Inequality.

Recommendation	Supporting Evidence (Section/Figure)
Equity-Based Recovery Fund	Literature on post-disaster financing inequities (4.3; Figure 3 Cluster 4)
ESG-Integrated Risk Disclosure	Fragmentation between risk and equity clusters (Section 4.1; Section 4.4)
Inclusive Auditing Standards	CSR–ESG legitimacy debates (Section 4.2)
Regional Capacity-Building	Global North bias identified (Section 6)

summarizes this linkage between analytical findings and proposed actions.

5.1. Enhancing ESG–Disaster Governance

First and foremost, ESG frameworks need to be reinforced as integral disaster-risk governance tools. ESG–disaster templates need to cover the entire disaster cycle of prevention, preparation, response, and recovery instead of being limited to post-disaster disclosure. This calls for the integration of disaster-risk considerations with corporate governance processes and sustainability reporting procedures. To operationalize this, disclosure guidelines need to include detailed disaster-response indicators, such as logistics coordination, supply-chain resilience, and allocation of emergency resources. In addition, linking short-term recovery measures with long-term institutional reforms helps avoid reducing ESG procedures as mere reactive or symbolic displays. Contextual adjustment of ESG instruments also helps compare disaster types and locations and reduce disconnect between reported indicators and resilience performance.

5.2. Addressing Vulnerability and Recovery Gaps

A second focus of intervention concerns the persistent recovery gaps that affect disadvantaged populations of individuals. Disaster impacts are not proportional; they have greater impacts on women, children, the elderly, migrants, and individuals with disabilities. To resolve the gaps, three related steps are recommended.

First, establishing an Equity-Based Recovery Fund would enable resource allocation to be informed by social vulnerability indicators—like gender, age, disability, migration status, and household income—instead of systematically excluding vulnerable households based on property ownership. Second, governments should embrace a Socially Disaggregated Recovery Tracker able to track reconstruction and livelihood outcomes at the group level. These systems would enhance accountability and allow for focused interventions while aligning recovery monitoring with the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 10 on reducing inequalities. Third, recovery governance would need to shift from centralized, top-down models of recovery governance toward community-led structures and give local NGOs, women’s associations, organizations of migrants, and disability organizations decision space. This would enhance the legitimacy as well as the inclusiveness of resilience-building initiatives, as evidenced from empirical findings on community-led disaster governance processes.

5.3. Aligning ESG with Public Disaster Frameworks

The third priority is to integrate corporate ESG responsibilities with broader public disaster governance mechanisms. Mandating the disclosure of social vulnerability indicators—such as displacement risk, precarious housing, and access to essential services—would address the current fragmentation between environmental and social dimensions of ESG. At the same time, corporate ESG obligations should be explicitly aligned with national disaster risk reduction (DRR) frameworks. Companies operating in high-risk geographies should be required to prepare resilience strategies that extend beyond business continuity to encompass the social dimensions of disaster exposure in surrounding communities. Institutionalized partnerships between firms, insurers, local governments, and civil society organizations can facilitate this integration, while fiscal incentives—such as tax credits and resilience bonds—can reward proactive corporate engagement in reducing social vulnerability. This approach would reposition ESG not only as an instrument of corporate accountability but also as an integral component of public disaster governance.

5.4. Reinforcing Auditing and Financial Conditionality

Lastly, furthering the “S” aspect of ESG entails the institutionalization of effective auditing and financial conditionality procedures. After-disaster ESG audits must become mandatory and be carried out by third parties that are independent, and these are intended for the purpose of substantiating equity in the distribution of aid, the handling of displacement, and the restoration of essential service delivery for marginalized populations. In its conduct, such auditing will lower the likelihood of reputational greenwashing and establish a credible channel for corporate claims validation. In addition, access to ESG-related financial products—such as green bonds and resilience bonds—must be dependent on verifiable social outcomes. Attaching financial eligibility to performance of an equity-minded kind will ensure corporate disaster responses are more than symbolic disclosure and yield measurable benefits for vulnerable populations. In the process, ESG finance can become a vehicle that imposes social accountability as much as environmental and governance ones.

By consolidating the recommendations of individual subsections into these four domains—disaster governance, vulnerability reduction, policy integration, and financial accountability—this section provides a structured policy roadmap. Together, these proposals underscore that ESG frameworks must evolve from voluntary reporting instruments into binding governance tools that systematically integrate disaster risk management with social equity objectives. Such an evolution would not only enhance corporate resilience but also promote a more just and inclusive recovery in the face of intensifying climate-related hazards.

Beyond financial and policy integration, institutional learning must be brought into ESG. It could ensure the iterative feedback between disclosure, performance, and public accountability if we build transdisciplinary observatories involving governments, corporations, and civil society. Such a mechanism can accelerate the convergence of ESG with disaster risk reduction frameworks.

6. Limitations

This systematic review of how ESG practices tackle social inequalities exacerbated by climate-associated disasters has several methodological and empirical limitations.

Firstly, there are sample biases: literature and data are biased toward large-cap corporations from the Global North and thus overrepresent developed-economy views and underrepresent small corporations and communities from the Global South, which inhibits generalizability of findings to more vulnerable settings. Secondly, lack of harmonized ESG metrics—particularly in the social dimension—impedes comparability across studies and obfuscates exact assessment of social outcomes such as community resilience or distributive equity of post-disaster recovery. Lastly, there are insufficient longitudinal and causal data directly connecting ESG practices with measurable social disaster recovery outcomes; most current studies are cross-sectional or descriptive, and long-term effects and causal dynamics are under-researched.

For these reasons, it is not clear if ESG initiatives translate into long-term social vulnerability reductions or better recovery outcomes for disadvantaged populations. These weaknesses identify key areas for future studies and practices. Future studies should focus on developing standardized social resilience indicators, which would allow consistent equity outcome measurements across varied settings and intervals. Interdisciplinary longitudinal study designs—combining knowledge from climate science, social policy, and finance—are required for monitoring ESG interventions on community vulnerability and resilience over longer intervals and across varied multi-risk environments; doing so would establish causality and enhance generalizability across regions and sectors.

Incorporation of vulnerability metrics (such as social vulnerability indices or climate risk indicators) into ESG analyses would frame corporate performance regarding local risk exposures and community needs and render ESG assessments more responsive to on-the-ground dynamics and identify if corporate initiatives are bypassing disadvantaged populations.

At the same time, corporations can innovate their ESG initiatives by jointly developing disaster resilience and preparation plans with disaster-prone communities so that interventions are context-specific, culturally relevant, and inclusive of vulnerable groups. They also need to establish procedures for monitoring post-disaster equity impacts so that if ESG initiatives are not closing social gaps in recovery and resilience as expected, their strategies can be refined. Ultimately, harmonizing ESG strategy with overall disaster governance plans and social equity initiatives is necessary so that corporate initiatives remain complementary to public policies and community projects and have measurable, on-the-ground effects on disadvantaged populations.

A key limitation concerns the geographic distribution of reviewed studies. Approximately 80% originate from Global North or OECD contexts. This imbalance may over-represent Western corporate logics and under-represent Global South governance realities. Future research should include non-OECD case studies and region-specific ESG frameworks to capture contextual diversity.

This study mainly contributed to reconciling the ethical roots of CSR with the quantitative governance structure of ESG. By demonstrating how ESG can serve as a systemic governance framework for equitable disaster resilience, this paper contributes both conceptually and empirically to sustainability scholarship. Comprehensive revisions across the methodology, analysis, and policy sections have strengthened the analytical coherence and empirical grounding of this review.