Risk Management for Sustainability and Wellbeing: Governance, Measurement, and Decision-Making in Organizations

Dear Colleagues,

Rationale and Scope

Sustainability strategies are increasingly moving beyond environmental performance to address social sustainability and human wellbeing. Issues such as workforce health and burnout, psychological safety, social inclusion, community resilience, and long-term economic security are now recognised as critical determinants of organisational resilience and sustainable value creation. While ESG frameworks and sustainability reporting standards acknowledge the importance of social outcomes, wellbeing remains under-theorised and insufficiently operationalised within enterprise risk management (ERM), governance systems, and strategic decision-making processes.

Traditional risk management approaches continue to prioritise financial, operational, regulatory, and market risks, offering limited methodological guidance for identifying, measuring, and managing complex wellbeing-related risks. However, risks associated with workforce stress, digitalisation, climate-related health exposure, social inequality, human capital erosion, and reputational damage linked to poor social performance are becoming increasingly material for organisations across sectors.

This Special Issue addresses this critical gap by explicitly positioning wellbeing as a measurable, governable, and decision-relevant risk domain within sustainability and ESG-oriented risk management frameworks. Rather than treating wellbeing as a broad social aspiration, this Special Issue focuses on how formal risk management tools, governance mechanisms, performance metrics, and decision-making models can systematically integrate wellbeing risks into organisational strategy and sustainability governance.

The Special Issue seeks to bring together interdisciplinary contributions from risk management, sustainability studies, corporate governance, behavioural science, economics, public policy, and digital transformation. We aim to advance both theory and practice on managing wellbeing-related risks in complex organisational and regulatory environments.

Objectives of the Special Issue

The Special Issue aims to achieve the following:

1. Advance conceptual clarity on wellbeing as a sustainability-related risk category within ERM and ESG governance frameworks.
2. Examine how organisations identify, assess, measure, and mitigate wellbeing-related risks using formal risk management tools.
3. Analyse governance structures, accountability mechanisms, and board-level oversight of wellbeing risks.
4. Explore quantitative and qualitative indicators, key risk indicators (KRIs), and performance metrics for monitoring and reporting wellbeing risks.
5. Investigate decision-making trade-offs between short-term financial performance and long-term wellbeing sustainability.
6. Assess regulatory, policy, and supervisory implications of integrating wellbeing into risk governance and ESG disclosure regimes.
7. Showcase empirical, methodological, and applied contributions that translate wellbeing concepts into actionable risk management practices.

Thematic Coverage and Indicative Topics

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

Risk Management and Measurement

• Operationalising wellbeing as a risk domain within ERM frameworks
• Risk taxonomies, risk appetite, and tolerance for social and wellbeing risks
• Quantification and modelling of wellbeing and non-financial risks
• Stress testing and scenario analysis incorporating wellbeing impacts
• Development of wellbeing-related KRIs, dashboards, and reporting tools

Governance and Accountability

• Board oversight and governance structures for wellbeing-related risks
• Integration of wellbeing into ESG reporting, assurance, and internal control systems
• Incentive structures, performance management, and executive accountability

Digitalisation, Innovation, and Emerging Risks

• Impacts of AI, automation, and digital transformation on workforce wellbeing
• Cyber risk, data governance, and digital trust as wellbeing-related risks
• Human–technology interaction risks and organisational resilience

Sectoral and Policy Perspectives

• Regulatory expectations and supervisory practices related to social and wellbeing risk governance
• Comparative international approaches to integrating wellbeing into sustainability and risk frameworks

Behavioural and Decision-Making Dimensions

• Behavioural risk, organisational culture, and wellbeing governance
• Decision biases in sustainability and risk trade-offs
• Balancing long-term value creation with short-term financial pressures

Target Audience and Relevance

This Special Issue is aimed at academics, practitioners, regulators, policymakers, and governance professionals working in:

• Risk management and enterprise risk governance
• Sustainability and ESG strategy
• Corporate governance and accountability
• Financial services, insurance, public administration, and regulated industries
• Digital transformation and organisational resilience

The issue will be of particular interest to readers seeking rigorous yet practical frameworks, empirical evidence, and policy-relevant insights on integrating social sustainability and wellbeing into formal risk management and governance systems.

Expected Contributions and Impact

Theoretical Contributions

• Extends risk management theory into the domains of social sustainability and wellbeing
• Clarifies the conceptual boundaries between wellbeing outcomes and material risk exposure

Methodological Contributions

• Advances measurement approaches for non-financial and wellbeing-related risks
• Demonstrates the integration of qualitative and quantitative risk analytics

Practical Contributions

• Provides actionable tools and frameworks for boards, risk committees, and sustainability leaders
• Supports improved governance, reporting, and strategic decision-making

Policy Contributions

• Informs regulatory and supervisory frameworks on embedding wellbeing within ESG and risk governance regimes

Types of Contributions Welcomed

The Special Issue welcomes:

• Empirical quantitative and qualitative studies;
• Conceptual and theoretical frameworks;
• Case studies and applied research;
• Comparative policy analyses;
• Methodological innovations;
• Practitioner-oriented perspectives grounded in rigorous analysis.

Interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral contributions are particularly encouraged.

Alignment with Journal Sustainability

The proposed Special Issue aligns strongly with Sustainability’s focus on risk analysis, governance, sustainability transitions, and applied policy relevance. It offers a timely and impactful contribution addressing emerging regulatory expectations, organisational resilience, and responsible innovation, while maintaining strong methodological and theoretical foundations.

Prof. Dr. Simon Grima
Prof. Dr. Eleftherios Thalassinos
Prof. Dr. Inna Romānova
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• risk management and measurement
• governance and accountability
• digitalisation, innovation, and emerging risks
• sectoral and policy perspectives
• behavioural and decision-making dimensions