Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to better understand how sustainability issues, also referred to as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, are (or not) affected during crises and beyond. It also aims to understand the impact of these sustainability issues on corporations and their industries during crises and beyond. We are interested in understanding the impacts and implications at different levels:

• Corporate level: it is important to note that we distinguish between nonfinancial corporation and financial corporation (e.g., banks, insurance). Faced with crisis, nonfinancial corporations could stop/postpone/pursue sustainability projects. Furthermore, little is known about banks’ exposure to climate risks and their actions, if any, to mitigate these risks, e.g., do banks reduce lending to fossil fuel-related corporations? What are central banks and regulators doing to mitigate climate risks?
• Supply chain level: this is an emerging area in sustainability, e.g., many corporations are ranked higher or lower in sustainability performance mainly because of the sustainability performance of their supply chain (e.g., modern slavery–child labor or poor working conditions; conflicts with local communities);
• Industry level: This is key for sustainability issues as different industries have different sustainability issues and different stakeholders’ expectations. Moreover, some industries are heavily regulated, e.g., banking and insurance;
• Country/regional level: What are the implications of the challenges and responses of governments and central banks (such as stimulus programs to counter the crisis; the transition to low-carbon economy) on the real economy, society, and the natural environment? For instance, implications of US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change; gender diversity regulation in the UK, etc.;
• Investor and money manager level: how funds flow into and out of sustainable funds during normal and distressed market conditions; impact of divestment movement from fossil-fuel related firms. Another interesting question is around the speed of transition to a low-carbon economy between developed and developing countries. Finally, do sustainable funds perform better relative to conventional funds during and after crisis (e.g., sustainable funds could lose less during distressed periods). Recently, the US Labor Department adopted rules suggesting that sustainable investments (e.g., ESG funds) need to put financial performance first to be included in retirement plans, e.g., pension funds.

This Special Issue aims to invite submissions of high-quality articles on topics related to the above issues to gain a better understanding of how sustainability issues are (or being) affected during and after different types of crises or distressed situations. This could provide useful insights on the way forward to more efficiently deal with future crises.

Most of the existing sustainability literature assumes normal market conditions. Little is known about the value of sustainbility strategies/investments/activities during and after crises. The latter could include, but not only, economic downturn, recession, financial crisis, the burst of capital markets bubbles (e.g., dot.com bubble of 2000–2001), and health crises (e.g., coronavirus pandemic 2019). It could also include situations where capital or product markets are characterized by higher political uncertainty (e.g., caused by elections or regime changes such as Arab spring, increases in political polarization, and the rise of populist movements in Europe and the US such as Brexit in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the US, or, for instance, US withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation). We do not know much about the value and implications of sustainability issues during crises and beyond. This Special Issue aims to address this gap in the sustainability literature.

Please note that our Special Issue is not about a specific or firm-level related negative event, e.g., oil spill, product recall or misconduct. It is more about negative events affecting several firms, although at varying degrees (e.g., financial or banking crisis, health crisis, political uncertainty).

Dr. Asma Mobarek
Dr. Kais Bouslah 
Dr. Qian Li
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 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 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.

• crisis
• recession
• uncertainty
• risk management
• climate risk
• environmental finance
• sustainable finance
• equality, diversity, and inclusion
• health and safety
• product quality
• corporate governance
• resource management
• privacy and cyber risk