Search Results (216)

Emerging technologies are increasingly positioned as key enablers of sustainable management; however, existing research largely examines digital transformation and sustainability as parallel rather than integrated processes, particularly within national transformation contexts. Moreover, prior studies tend to focus on individual technologies or environmental outcomes, offering limited insight into how emerging technologies are embedded within ESG-oriented management systems and institutional governance frameworks. To address this gap, this study adopts a structured conceptual literature review methodology guided by a systematic PRISMA-informed selection process. Based on the qualitative synthesis of 76 peer-reviewed studies, the paper develops an integrative framework explaining how emerging technologies enable sustainable management and digital transformation within the context of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. Drawing on sustainability transitions, digital transformation, and ESG management literature, emerging technologies are conceptualized as combinatorial digital capabilities operating through a recursive capability loop (Sense–Analyze–Decide–Act–Verify). These capabilities influence sustainability outcomes through four mediating mechanisms—measurement, optimization, transparency, and institutionalization—and are conditionally shaped by national institutional enablers. The proposed framework positions ESG-oriented management systems as a mediating layer between technological capabilities and multi-dimensional sustainability outcomes, while explicitly addressing the double transition paradox, which recognizes both the sustainability benefits and environmental costs of digital infrastructures. The study advances theory by integrating ESG mediation, institutional moderation, and capability-based mechanisms into a unified analytical architecture and formulates six theoretically grounded propositions to guide future empirical research. The framework also provides actionable insights for managers and policymakers seeking to align digital transformation, ESG integration, and national sustainability agendas in Saudi Arabia and comparable emerging economy contexts. Full article

Illegal artisanal and small-scale mining (galamsey) and climate stress jointly degrade ecosystems and livelihoods in Ghana. This paper demonstrates how community-driven governance can realign incentives toward environmental stewardship and inclusive livelihoods. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design—quantitative difference-in-differences followed by qualitative case analysis and Participatory Action Research—we evaluate a structured program combining vocational training, financial literacy, environmental stewardship, and governance alignment. We operationalize Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) outcomes via transparent composite indices and triangulate survey, administrative, and focus group evidence. The study identifies conditions under which alternative livelihoods reduce participation in illegal mining, strengthen women’s economic agency, and improve adoption of climate-smart practices. Implications include practical guidance for program design (community delivery, matched incentives, oversight), policy (local climate finance and accountability mechanisms), and research (scalable indicators and rigorous impact evaluation in resource-dependent communities). Full article

Growing regulatory, investor, and societal pressures have heightened the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure as a key mechanism for corporate transparency and accountability, particularly in emerging markets. This study examines the relationship between ethical leadership and ESG disclosure among publicly listed companies in Saudi Arabia within the context of the Vision 2030 reforms. Drawing on ethical leadership theory and stakeholder theory, ethical leadership is conceptualized as an internal behavioral governance mechanism shaping firms’ sustainability reporting practices. The empirical analysis is based on panel data of 147 non-financial firms listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) from 2020 to 2024, yielding 735 firm-year observations. ESG disclosure was measured using Refinitiv ESG scores, whereas ethical leadership was captured using the CSRHub Ethical Leadership Index. Employing a random-effects panel regression model with firm-level clustered robust standard errors, the results reveal a positive and statistically significant association between ethical leadership and ESG disclosure. These findings indicate that leadership ethics play an important role in enhancing transparency and accountability in sustainability reporting, and offer relevant implications for corporate governance and ESG policy development in Saudi Arabia. Full article

While Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria are extensively utilized for corporate evaluation, empirical evidence regarding sovereign ESG efficiency remains scarce. Existing national sustainability indices often fail to account for how effectively a nation translates its economic resources into ESG outcomes. This study proposes a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) framework to evaluate the efficiency of 38 OECD countries in 2020. The national production process is decomposed into two sequential phases: (1) Economic Efficiency, transforming resource inputs (labor and energy) into intermediate economic outputs (GDP and trade openness), and (2) ESG Transformation Efficiency, converting those intermediate outputs into a composite ESG score. A novel quartile-based classification scheme is further applied to categorize countries into strategic groups for benchmarking. Empirical results reveal significant heterogeneity across the OECD. Estonia, Iceland, and Latvia emerge as “Win–Win” benchmarks, demonstrating high efficiency in both economic production and ESG transformation. Conversely, the United States is classified as a “Laissez-faire” member, exhibiting low performance in both stages relative to its capacity. Additionally, second-stage regression analysis indicates that while higher income is negatively associated with ESG transformation efficiency, government effectiveness acts as a significant positive driver. This research contributes a transparent, reproducible framework for sovereign ESG analytics that relates outcomes directly to economic capacity. It provides policymakers with an interpretable benchmarking tool to identify national sustainability gaps and facilitates actionable insights for enhancing public-sector effectiveness in achieving ESG goals. Full article

Strengthening transparency has emerged as a pivotal issue in promoting the responsible development of artificial intelligence (AI). As the prevailing framework for corporate information disclosure, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting shares an inherent synergy with AI governance; both are rooted in the pursuit of sustainable development and the disclosure of specific matters to investors and broader stakeholders. This study analyzes the status of artificial intelligence (AI) information disclosure in the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reports of listed companies across the United States, Europe, and China, finding that: (1) ESG reports have emerged as a primary channel for business organizations to disclose AI-related information; (2) significant disparities exist in disclosure levels across four key AI-related domains—development, application, manufacturing, and consumption; and (3) disclosure density varies considerably across E, S, and G dimensions, with the Governance (G) pillar exhibiting the most comprehensive information. Based on an empirical analysis of the ESG-AI disclosure framework, this study proposes an optimization scheme for ESG-AI reporting, clearly defining mandatory ESG-AI disclosure obligations for listed companies and employing the “comply or explain” mechanism to balance corporate transparency with operational efficiency while adhering to the “Double Materiality” principle by disclosing model training energy consumption and ecological impacts under Environmental (E) matters, addressing employment, employee training, marketing labeling, and customer privacy under Social (S) matters, and elaborating on corporate AI strategies, risk management protocols, and governance policies under Governance (G) matters. Regarding procedural safeguards, taking China as a case study, centralized disclosure could be implemented through the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, complemented by an assurance system for listed company reports to enhance the accessibility and accuracy of information disclosure. Full article

Smart city decision systems must balance conflicting objectives including efficiency, sustainability, equity, safety, and public accountability. Existing AI and reinforcement learning approaches often optimize isolated objectives and rarely provide integrated mechanisms for sustainability alignment, transparency, and pre-deployment validation. This paper introduces MORL-SGF, a governance-aware framework that integrates ESG/SDG-aligned multi-objective reinforcement learning, Digital Twin (DT)-based policy validation, and Pareto-based policy auditing within a single learning pipeline. The framework preserves vector-valued rewards to avoid hidden scalarization bias and supports auditable policy selection from a portfolio of Pareto-optimal candidates. MORL-SGF is validated analytically and conceptually through formal modeling and structured evidence synthesis rather than empirical deployment, providing a blueprint for subsequent simulation-based and real-world implementation studies. Future work will focus on large-scale Digital Twin benchmarking, stakeholder preference modeling, and deployment-oriented evaluation. Full article

Differentiating between authentic corporate compliance and strategic avoidance is of paramount importance for the evaluation of carbon-emission reduction policies. Leveraging China’s Total Carbon-Emission Control Policy (TCP) as a quasi-natural experiment, the influence of carbon regulations on corporate ESG performance was investigated in this study. Three significant patterns were identified by analyzing data of Chinese non-financial A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2023 through a difference-in-differences (DID) design. First, after the implementation of the TCP, the ESG performance of firms demonstrated an increase of 0.1309 on the Huazheng ESG index, indicating substantial compliance. Second, the positive impact is more obvious in state-owned enterprises, enterprises located in the eastern regions, large-scale enterprises, and industries with high pollution, which possess stronger institutional capacity and enforcement. Third, the mechanism analysis reveals that the TCP exerts opposing forces: it promotes ESG performance via green innovation while simultaneously increasing rent-seeking costs. The net positive effect implies that substantial compliance prevails. These findings passed robustness checks. The results suggest that carbon regulations can propel corporate sustainability when institutional design achieves a balance between targets and transparency, offering insights for the climate policies of emerging economies. Full article

The Polish energy sector is undergoing a profound transformation driven by decarbonization targets and the implementation of the European Union’s sustainability governance framework, including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and the EU Taxonomy Regulation. These policy instruments aim to align corporate behavior, capital allocation, and risk management with long-term sustainability and climate objectives, particularly in energy systems characterized by high carbon intensity. This study examines how ESG reporting requirements are perceived by professionals involved in ESG reporting in Poland’s energy sector and how they are expected to influence economic performance and investment decisions. The analysis is based on survey data from 43 entities. Although the sample size is limited, it covers the key energy-sector entities in Poland, providing a comprehensive sector-level perspective. Non-parametric statistical tests, binary and ordinal logit models, principal component analysis, Kendall’s tau correlations, and cluster analysis are used to assess perceived economic benefits, compliance capacity, and cost-related challenges associated with ESG reporting. The results indicate that ESG reporting is perceived as an economically relevant instrument improving transparency and supporting the integration of environmental performance into investment and strategic decision-making. At the same time, respondents identify significant economic barriers, including high administrative costs, regulatory complexity, and legal uncertainty, particularly affecting carbon-intensive entities. Full article

The real estate appraisal sector is undergoing a profound transformation, shifting from traditional financial metrics toward multidisciplinary approaches that integrate civil engineering, territorial and environmental analysis, and advanced econometric modeling. This evolution addresses the hidden risks in so-called “zombie assets” and supports sustainable investment decisions. The INSPIRE Open Topic explores innovative methodologies to translate qualitative aspects—such as governance, environmental exposure, and social equity—into robust quantitative frameworks for both private and public decision-making. Fuzzy logic has emerged as a key tool for quantifying qualitative judgments, enhancing the transparency and reliability of ESG assessments. Empirical evidence shows that these approaches provide a realistic representation of risk, guide resilient urban strategies, and lay the foundation for scalable, sustainable, and transparent real estate evaluation. Full article

This study investigates the predictability of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance using financial fundamentals within the context of Taiwan, a prominent small open economy integrated into global value chains. As global markets transition toward mandatory sustainability reporting, identifying the financial ante-cedents of ESG outcomes is critical for risk management and regulatory oversight. Uti-lizing a decade of firm-level data (2014–2023) from the Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ), we employ supervised machine learning (ML) architectures-including Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost)-to classify firms into ESG performance tiers based on indicators such as profitability, valuation, and scale. Our empirical results provide robust support for the Slack Resources Hypothesis, identifying Return on Assets (ROA) and Firm Size (SIZE) as the most consistent predictors of ESG excellence across the semiconductor, cement, and steel sectors. Conversely, mar-ket-based indicators (Tobin’s Q) dominate predictive models for the financial industry. Methodologically, XGBoost delivers superior predictive calibration for the financial sector, while Decision Trees offer highly interpretable threshold-based logic for risk screening. Our study contributes a transparent “early-warning” framework, enabling investors and regulators to identify sustainability risks through auditable financial benchmarks. The findings suggest that while financial latitude is a structural prerequisite for ESG engagement, it is not its sole determinant, pointing toward a “virtuous circle” of financial health and managerial quality. Full article

ESG criteria have become central to corporate sustainability, reshaping governance, reporting, and the accounting profession. This study investigates how chartered accountants engage with ESG by combining micro-level survey evidence from Greece with macro-level bibliometric analysis of global ESG scholarship. The survey explored accountants’ knowledge, practices, and perceptions of ESG indicators, revealing significant generational differences: younger professionals reported higher familiarity and stronger implementation of ESG practices, while older respondents demonstrated more limited engagement. Training emerged as a decisive factor, with formally trained accountants applying a broader range of ESG criteria and perceiving greater strategic benefits in credibility, competitiveness, and adaptability. Complementing these insights, the bibliometric analysis of 861 articles published between 1993 and 2025 demonstrated exponential growth in ESG-related research, particularly after 2019, with sustainable development emerging as the conceptual anchor of the field. Thematic mapping highlighted climate change, decision-making, and corporate governance as central concerns, while collaborations between countries such as China, Italy, and the United States underscored global research dynamics. Overall, the study shows that accountants are increasingly positioned as gatekeepers of sustainability reporting, but their effectiveness depends on continuous training, regulatory alignment, and integration into global ESG frameworks. Full article

The paper investigates the relationship between ESG transparency/performance and financial performance in tourism, with a focus on profitability (ROA), capital structure (D/E), and cost of capital (WACC). The empirical analysis uses a 2019–2024 panel for 10 listed tourism companies—Booking Holdings, Expedia Group, Airbnb, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels, InterContinental Hotels Group, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, TUI Group, and Carnival Corporation—covering distinct sub-sectors (OTA/Platform, Hotels, Tour Operator, Cruise). The study is based on a quantitative methodology that includes descriptive analyses and the application of advanced econometric models. Methodologically, the paper applies panel econometric models with fixed effects (firm and year), sectoral controls and robustness tests (ESG × Sector interactions, alternative size specifications). The results indicate, on average, a positive association between ESG and profitability (ROA) scores, as well as a negative relationship with WACC (indicating a lower cost of capital for firms with higher ESG), after controlling for size, country and sector. The effects are heterogeneous across sub-sectors, with the ESG–performance relationship more pronounced in hotels (where capital intensity and operational exposure are higher) and less pronounced for OTA platforms, but remain directional and statistically significant in most specifications. Overall, ESG compliance and performance emerge not only as reporting obligations, but also as strategic tools associated with sustainable competitive advantage in tourism. Therefore, the CSRD is not just a reporting obligation, but also a strategic tool that boosts financial performance and managerial innovation. The study provides directions for future research on the use of artificial intelligence in the evaluation of ESG reporting and the expansion of the analysis to other economic branches. Full article

This study investigated how collaboration between academia and local authorities creates sustainable frameworks for addressing urban challenges through environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles, benefiting both education and the long-term resilience of cities. The paper discusses how establishing dialogue and setting common aims between educational institutions and local authorities, by adopting Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, enables architecture schools to address civic responsibilities while advancing ESG goals in urban development. The collaboration addresses environmental sustainability through circular economy principles, promotes social inclusion through community engagement, and establishes transparent governance through institutional partnerships. This collaborative model was developed through three summer workshops in Aberdeen, delivered before the pandemic, which helped bridge the gap between theory (academic and educational hypotheses) and practice (tangible urban challenges facing public organisations). This unique experience, named Aber-net (reiterating the intention of creating a network of collaborations), demonstrated how merging research, professional expertise and educational frameworks can create ESG-driven partnerships that support responsible urban development, a model currently underrepresented in the UK. In conclusion, the paper discusses how these collaborative activities improved the perception of public spaces in Aberdeen while establishing a replicable ESG-aligned framework for sustainable partnerships. It examines the challenges and opportunities of creating academia-practice networks that embed ESG principles into urban development. Full article

With the refined global division of labor and the increasing complexity of international production networks, high-quality interactions of suppliers impact downstream firms’ operational resilience through supply chain linkage effects. We use data from Chinese A-share listed firms and their suppliers from 2009 to 2023 and empirically examine the effects of suppliers’ high-quality interactions on downstream firms’ operational resilience based on signaling theory. The empirical results show that such interactions significantly enhance firms’ operational resilience, confirming positive spillover effects along the supply chain. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that the positive spillover effects are most pronounced for smaller firms and those with lower information transparency. Further analysis reveals that suppliers’ high-quality interactions mitigate firms’ financing constraints and enhance supply chain stability, thus strengthening their operational resilience. Moreover, this effect is moderated by suppliers’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, which improves the signaling efficacy of high-quality interactions. The findings highlight the influence of suppliers’ interactions on firms’ operational resilience, broaden the analytical perspective on resilience research, and provide important policy implications for strengthening firms’ operational resilience. Full article

FinTech adoption is increasingly viewed as a catalyst for sustainable finance, yet empirical evidence on how and under what conditions it enhances environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance remains mixed, particularly in emerging economies. This study examines the relationship between FinTech adoption and ESG performance in MENA banks, explicitly modeling corruption risk as an internal governance transmission channel. Using a panel of 152 listed banks across 11 MENA countries over the period 2013–2023 and a novel bank-level FinTech Adoption Index constructed through textual analysis of annual reports, we employ fixed-effects and dynamic System GMM estimations to examine both direct and indirect effects. The results show that FinTech adoption is positively associated with ESG performance. More importantly, corruption risk partially mediates this relationship, indicating that FinTech enhances sustainability outcomes not only through improved disclosure and transparency, but also by strengthening internal governance and constraining integrity-related risks. The indirect effect is economically meaningful, underscoring the role of digital governance mechanisms in institutionally constrained settings. Pillar-level analysis reveals stronger effects for the governance and social dimensions, while environmental effects are comparatively weaker. Additional robustness analyses confirm the persistence of these findings across institutional settings and crisis periods. These findings contribute to the FinTech–ESG literature by identifying corruption risk as a key governance mechanism and provide policy-relevant insights for regulators and banks seeking to leverage digital transformation to achieve substantive sustainability outcomes in emerging banking systems. Full article