Special Issue "The Mediating Role of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Orientation in Finance and Investments"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Jean-Pierre Gueyie
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Finance, School of Management, University of Quebec in Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Interests: finance; development finance; financial institutions; financial markets; microfinance; corporate governance

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable and socially responsible investments have become a major issue for investors around the world. Investors are trying to chart the course of the future, through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) orientation. They want to entrust financial institutions not only to grow their money, but also to expand the benefits to society as a whole. They want financial institutions to go beyond the primary function of finance as funding the economy, and generate profits (for investment institutions). Briefly speaking, they want to generate stakeholders’ values, a shift from the sole shareholders’ values.

This orientation has forced new habits for practitioners and for financial markets, who have to integrate extra-financial aspects (i.e., ESG aspects) into financial decision-making processes.

How do practitioners adapt to this new reality? What are the consequences of the ESG integrated funds allocation, in terms of risk management for corporations and investors? How do financial markets and investors react to new features such as ESG ratings? What are the results of new research by academics on this topic?

This Special Issue will address these questions, as well as other unanswered questions that are not listed here. Through both theoretical and empirical papers, it will provide new insights on the reasons, processes, practices, and implications of accounting for environmental considerations, social considerations, increased governance practices, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and socially responsible investing.

The issue will be of interest to academics, practitioners, policy-makers, and by extension, the whole finance community.

The Special Issue welcomes valuable unpublished and non-submitted contributions.

Papers to be considered include but are not limited to the following topics:

  • Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices and disclosure
  • ESG performance
  • ESG ratings, market, and/or corporate reaction to ESG ratings
  • ESG impact measures of portfolios
  • Sustainable finance
  • Ethical finance
  • Sustainable investing and sustainable funds
  • Impact investing
  • Corporate social responsibility
  • Green finance and investment
  • Socially responsible investments
  • Microfinance

Prof. Jean-Pierre Gueyie
Guest Editor

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 papers will be 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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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 1900 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.

Keywords

  • Environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices and disclosure
  • ESG performance
  • ESG ratings, market and/or corporate reaction to ESG ratings
  • ESG impact measures of portfolios
  • Sustainable finance
  • Ethical finance
  • Sustainable investing and sustainable funds
  • Impact investing
  • Corporate social responsibility
  • Green finance and investment
  • Socially responsible investments
  • Microfinance

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

Article
A Virtuous Circle of Governance Contests with Externalities
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7766; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147766 - 12 Jul 2021
Viewed by 412
Abstract
Governments create contests to allocate resources to stakeholders, e.g., grants, contracts. The actions of these stakeholders can generate a positive externality for themselves—the contest winner can attract additional outside funding and donations from third-parties who want to jump on the winner’s bandwagon. Herein [...] Read more.
Governments create contests to allocate resources to stakeholders, e.g., grants, contracts. The actions of these stakeholders can generate a positive externality for themselves—the contest winner can attract additional outside funding and donations from third-parties who want to jump on the winner’s bandwagon. Herein we examine the externalities arising from these contests created by governance and their impact on a virtuous circle of governance contests. Among various conditions that make governance virtuous, we focus on the equilibrium expected payoffs of stakeholders, the difference in them, and the rent-dissipation rates. Our study shows that the impact of externalities on the efficiency of governance depends on two key factors: (i) the choice of governance contests, the player-externality and the winner-externality, and (ii) the relative efficiency of stakeholders’ efforts. Full article
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Article
Business Analytics for Managing Performance of Microfinance Institutions: A Flexible Management of the Implementation Process
Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 4882; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13094882 - 27 Apr 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 465
Abstract
Microfinance institutions are social enterprises that focus on the provision of financial services to poor populations excluded from the conventional banking system. These organizations face a double-bottom line, dealing simultaneously with a financial and social objective. The challenge of putting it into action [...] Read more.
Microfinance institutions are social enterprises that focus on the provision of financial services to poor populations excluded from the conventional banking system. These organizations face a double-bottom line, dealing simultaneously with a financial and social objective. The challenge of putting it into action is great, especially when there is a need to involve all stakeholders and to replicate the experience to new communities. One way to sustain both financial performance and social impacts is to develop a business analytics solution aiming at measuring and expanding social impacts in a financially sustainable way. This paper describes main elements to be considered, in particular the organizational context, the development process, and implementation issues that would facilitate or impede the deployment of a business analytics initiative in practice. Finally, two main components of the implementation process are specifically pointed out: a behavioral fit of the business analytics solution to the cultural context of the organization, and the country where it is deployed, and a flexible commitment in the management of the business analytics initiative implementation. Full article
Article
Complex Risks of COVID-19 Pandemic: Possible Metamorphization of National into Cosmopolitan Sustainable Development
Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2976; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052976 - 09 Mar 2021
Viewed by 544
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to analyze the complex risks of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and their nonlinear influence on sustainable development. In the context of this global pandemic, this article shows the limits of “thinking national” and argues that metamorphization of [...] Read more.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the complex risks of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and their nonlinear influence on sustainable development. In the context of this global pandemic, this article shows the limits of “thinking national” and argues that metamorphization of national to cosmopolitan sustainable development is possible on the basis of overcoming national egoism with cosmopolitan survival. The article builds on the “the theory of metamorphosis” proposed by U. Beck (2010). Phenomena are analyzed through the effects of the “arrow of time” (I. Prigogine) and “methodological cosmopolitanism”. The main results are as follows: The risks of COVID-19 have mixed effects on sustainable development. On the one hand, they undermine the traditional approaches towards social security and sustainability, but on the other hand, there is a chance of establishing cosmopolitan medical cooperation in the struggle against viruses by passing from national biopolitics and national structures of sustainable development to cosmopolitan (global concerted) counterparts. The conclusion is drawn that in order to realize this possibility, it is necessary to re-discover the existing visions of sustainable development while taking into consideration the common struggle of nations against epidemics. Full article
Article
Does the Medium Matter? Linking Citizens’ Use of Communication Platform for Information about Urban Policies to Decision to Trust in Local Government
Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2723; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052723 - 03 Mar 2021
Viewed by 527
Abstract
Information plays a formative role in citizens’ decision to trust their government. Given an increasingly diverse information environment, which is attributable to the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT)s, the Internet, and social media, we hypothesize that citizens’ use of a particular [...] Read more.
Information plays a formative role in citizens’ decision to trust their government. Given an increasingly diverse information environment, which is attributable to the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT)s, the Internet, and social media, we hypothesize that citizens’ use of a particular medium for information (online vs offline, and government source vs. non-government source) about their government plays an important and distinctive role in shaping citizens’ satisfaction with government information provision and trust in government. To address this central hypothesis, we analyze data from the 3068 citizen respondents. The findings of our study reveal that citizens’ use of the online medium for information about their government, such as information from local government web-media, lacks a strong relationship with their levels of satisfaction with government information provision and trust in government, while citizens’ use of different sources on the offline medium for information about their government, such as information from local government meeting or official gazette, is found to have a stronger association with citizens’ trust in government and satisfaction with government information provision. Full article
Article
Environmental, Social, Governance Activities and Firm Performance: Evidence from China
Sustainability 2021, 13(2), 767; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020767 - 14 Jan 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1128
Abstract
Increasingly noticeable environmental and risk problems have made more and more companies and regulatory agencies realize the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities. However, on the question that whether ESG activities have promoted or reduced firm performance, there is still no [...] Read more.
Increasingly noticeable environmental and risk problems have made more and more companies and regulatory agencies realize the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities. However, on the question that whether ESG activities have promoted or reduced firm performance, there is still no consensus. Especially for China, a representative country in emerging markets whose corporate ESG activities are still in their infancy and related systems and regulatory measures not complete, its theoretical and practical circles more urgently need to know an accurate answer to this question. Therefore, this article takes China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies that have ESG rating data from 2015 to 2019 as samples and finds that corporate ESG activities have a significantly negative impact on firm performance. Further research finds that compared with state-owned enterprises and environmentally sensitive enterprises, non-state-owned enterprises and non-environmentally sensitive enterprises provide stronger evidence to support the above conclusions. Full article
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