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The purpose of this paper is to explore the state of S&P 500 companies’ transparency by analyzing their Bloomberg ESG (Environmental-Social-Governance) disclosure scores. Additionally, the effects of industry sector, firm size, and governance practices on transparency are examined.

Data were retrieved from Bloomberg using the financial analysis environmental, social and governance function for companies comprising the S&P 500 index. Descriptive statistics are provided on each of the three components separately (ESG). Nonparametric procedures are used to test for significant differences in transparency within each of these three areas based on industry sector. Additionally, nonparametric tests are used to determine the impact of firm size (market capitalization) and governance factors (board size, board gender diversity, chief executive officer (CEO) duality, and linking executive compensation to ESG disclosure) on the composite ESG score.

Descriptive statistics reveal that S&P 500 companies differ in their level of disclosure across the three areas (ESG). The highest level of transparency is found on Governance and the lowest on Environmental. Moreover, there is much variability in the percentage of S&P 500 companies disclosing information about specific Social policies (e.g. child labor). Significant differences in transparency on both the Social and Governance dimensions are found between certain industry sectors. The results also reveal that large-cap companies have significantly higher ESG disclosure scores than mid-cap companies and that governance factors impact ESG disclosure. Significantly, higher ESG disclosure scores are observed for S&P 500 firms with larger boards of directors, with boards that are more gender diverse, that allow CEO duality, and that link executive compensation to ESG scores.

This study focuses on corporate transparency through a granular analysis of ESG disclosure scores when most other studies have been primarily conducted at the macro level. Stakeholders, analysts, and shareholders are increasingly scrutinizing firms’ sustainability disclosures in their assessment of management quality, as it reflects on the practices/policies that are employed to improve firms’ environmental and social footprints.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of sustainability disclosures and disclosure ratings on firm value. This paper compares the informativeness of sustainability disclosures in company reports versus environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure ratings. The authors examine the extent to which they provide incremental information.

The sample consists of panel data from over 2,600 publicly-listed non-financial US companies for the period 2014–2018. The authors obtain sustainability disclosures from Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Navigator and ESG disclosure scores from Bloomberg. The authors regress market value and/or stock price on sustainability disclosures and ESG scores to evaluate information content.

ESG scores are positively associated with market value and price. Sustainability disclosures in the form of metrics and company-tailored narratives provide incremental information content on market value and/or price. Boilerplate disclosures reduce market value and price. Sustainability disclosures and ESG scores provide incremental information, suggesting that it would be beneficial to harmonize standards for reporting sustainability disclosures.

The limitation is that the authors have only considered sustainability disclosures for a sample of US companies from two sources – SASB Navigator and Bloomberg.

The paper provides some evidence that may be pertinent to the debate on whether to harmonize the guidance on reporting sustainability issues.

The paper provides evidence on the benefits to firms for reporting sustainability issues.

This paper is among the first to analyze company sustainability disclosures obtained from two different sources – SASB Navigator and ESG disclosure ratings – and compare them for relevance for company valuation. With SASB Navigator, the authors obtain further refinement into the nature of the information provided in the sustainability disclosures, that is, boilerplate, company-tailored or metrics disclosures.

The authors examine the determinants of ESG disclosure and differentiate between voluntary and mandatory disclosure regimes in Hong Kong.

The authors analyse both Bloomberg ESG scores and a disclosure index score, manually constructed according to the 2019 Hong Kong Exchange ESG Guide using regression tests.

The results indicate that the level of concentrated ownership is negatively associated with the quantity of ESG disclosure only in the voluntary disclosure period, suggesting that agency problems are alleviated when ESG reporting is mandatory. The findings also show that larger firms significantly disclose higher levels of ESG information in both voluntary and mandatory disclosure periods. Furthermore, the extent of ESG disclosure significantly increases when firms' sustainability reports are audited by Big 4 accounting firms only in the voluntary disclosure period. Finally, the control variables are significantly related to the level of ESG disclosure showing that ESG disclosure increased over time and is significantly different among industries.

The authors make contributions to the literature on non-financial disclosure in relation to ESG reporting by examining the relationship between firm characteristics and ESG disclosure in the Hong Kong context under both voluntary and mandatory disclosure regimes. This study also provides important implications for other stock markets and relevant stakeholders including preparers, users and the sustainability profession.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between banks’ board structure and sustainability performance.

The empirical quantitative paper covers a sample of 35 European banks that are listed at the EUROSTOXX 600. Regression analysis techniques were used in the analyses.

Results indicate that board size, women ratio and independent directors ratio on board are positively and significantly related to environmental social governance (ESG), E and S disclosure scores. Also, we find that ESG disclosure is related to bank profitability.

Findings have implications for both policymakers and practitioners (bankers and investors). Large bank boards, which have women and independent members, could perform better in terms of ESG disclosure. The results also show that large banks and banks with high borrowing care more about sustainability. For banks to reach resources, they should perform well in terms of sustainability disclosure to their stakeholders.

Banks should observe academic findings on corporate governance (CG) practices, which lead to a better ESG disclosure to structure their CG to improve at the best their disclosure policies: they should prefer larger boards with a high level of women and independence. In addition, we attach importance to the ESG performance of the banking sector due to its fund transfer functions. Banks transfer the deposits they collect to those in need of funds as loans. For this reason, it is important to which sector and which business they give credit. The importance of banks on ESG and their adoption of sustainability dimensions also affect their credit decisions.

This study examines the relationship between banks’ board structure variables and their effect on ESG, E and S scores separately. This study thinks that the G score can be a handicap for ESG-CG relations. Because chosen CG variables (women ratio, independent ratio, board size) affect G scores positively and can reason for positive ESG-CG relation. The environmental and social impact of women ratio, independent ratio and board size can be seen in this study.

This study investigates the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure on firm financial performance under a mandatory disclosure regime in Hong Kong.

The authors examine the largest 109 firms listed on the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX) as of the financial year of 2019. The authors use a manually constructed index based on the most current 2019 ESG Reporting Guide launched by HKEX, followed by quantitative statistical methods using a model that follows the valuation framework by Ohlson.

The authors find a significant positive association between total ESG disclosure level and firm financial performance in the main tests. However, when the total ESG scores are partitioned into environmental and social subscores, the results show that only social disclosures are value relevant. Moreover, the results demonstrate that environmental and social subscores are both significant when return on assets (ROA) is used as a dependent variable. Furthermore, the robustness tests show that only qualitative ESG information is value relevant to share prices, while both quantitative and qualitative ESG information are relevant to ROA. In addition, the disclosure quality of annual reports alone is good in explaining the firm financial performance in this study.

This study contributes to existing non-financial reporting literature using hand-collected data as well as examining the firm financial performance of ESG reporting under the mandatory disclosure regime in the Hong Kong context.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in economic and financial hardships on firms, forcing them to make tough decisions regarding their social and ethical behavior. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and disclosures of the US S&P 500 firms. In particular, this study examined the relationship between both CSR performance and COVID-19 and the relationship between CSR disclosures and COVID-19 along with the dimensions of environmental, social, and governance. Using t-tests and panel data analysis for the years 2018 through 2021, we found that CSR performance and CSR disclosure increased after the start of the pandemic for total CSR and for the dimensions of environmental, social, and governance. We also found that CSR performance was impacted by a larger change than CSR disclosures for all dimensions of CSR. This study is one of the first to examine the impact of COVID-19 on CSR and helps stakeholders understand the role that it played on firm decisions. The results further illustrate the importance that firms’ managements place on CSR performance and disclosures, even during a time of significant challenge and uncertainty.

The board of directors of an organization can contribute considerably to the transition to a sustainable global economy by accommodating environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures in the directors' business model. Along these lines, the purpose of this research is to understand the nexus between the board's structural attributes and sustainability disclosures in an emerging economy such as India.

The authors investigate this link using the system generalized method of moments (SGMM) panel regression on a sample of firms from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty 100 Index from 2013 to 2020. This econometric framework controls endogeneity among the variables, which has been a gap in the previous studies.

The authors find that board structural attributes, like board size, gender diversity, chief executive officer (CEO) duality and independence, have little bearing on sustainability disclosures of Indian companies. However, the board of directors, through the board's company's social responsibility (CSR) committee, strives for sustainability practices in Indian organizations. The authors also find that larger companies are more willing to disclose on ESG efforts than smaller ones, but the financial performance of the smaller ones (as proxied by Tobin's Q) does not matter.

This study is restricted to a sample of large cap listed companies and specific environment, resulting in the non-generalizability of the findings to different contexts because countries vary in their state of economic development, internal policy, regulations and governance.

A mandated CSR committee has helped Indian businesses to publicize their sustainability efforts. Besides the frontrunner in CSR regulations, Indian organizations have paid least attention to the environmental pillar of the ESG framework. Accordingly, the board of directors should put more emphasis on the environmental aspects of their business' sustainability efforts to help achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the medium term and net neutrality in the long term.

From the standpoint of an emerging economy like India, which has statutory CSR mandates for firms, this research adds a fresh perspective on the relationship between corporate governance and corporate responsibility by employing stakeholder theory, which is further substantiated by the use of system GMM as a robust methodology. This study also emphasizes the significance of a mandatory CSR committee as a facilitator of sustainability practices and reporting in emerging economies.

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of environment, social and governance (ESG) disclosure on credit ratings of companies in India.

Firms under study are listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 500 and represent almost 93 per cent of the total market capitalization on BSE. This study considers a sample of 122 firms from a population of 500 to examine the relationship between ESG scores and Credit Rating. The scope of this study is confined to those firms listed on the S&P BSE 500 which have made ESG disclosures and were rated by various credit rating agencies like Crisil, ICRA and CARE. Data were sourced from Bloomberg. Ratings were given in ascending order. In the first model, credit rating was used as predicted variable; ESG score as predictor variable and market capitalization, net debt to equity, and total debt to asset as control considering the ordered nature of dependent variable in the study, ordered logistic regression was applied. It was repeated taking individual scores on environment rating, social rating and governance rating as predictors. The authors further segregated the 122 selected firms into large, medium and low capital firms and assessed separate logistic regression models taking credit rating as the predicted variable and overall ESG score as the predictor.

It was found that overall ESG performance and performance of individual components (environment, social and financial variables such as market capitalization, and debt to equity ratio) had significant positive indicators of creditworthiness as measured through credit rating. Governance score had a positive and insignificant relation with credit rating. Market capitalization was observed to have significant direct relationship with credit worthiness. On the other hand, number of independent directors in companies showed significant inverse relationship with creditworthiness. ESG significantly impacted credit rating in the desired direction only for small- and middle-level firms; for large firms which already had higher credit rating, ESG showed no effect. It was also found that credit rating itself determined significantly the extent of overall ESG reporting and disclosure of its components.

This is unique study that covers the aspects of ESG reports and its impact on credit rating.

This study aims to investigate not only the association between corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and the cost of capital (COC) but also its impact on the company’s idiosyncratic risk. Further, it highlights that companies could manage their risk through sustainability initiatives to achieve a cheaper cost of financing.

Using an extensive Australian sample for the 2007–2017 period from the Bloomberg database, this study conducts a panel (data) regression analysis to examine the impact of the corporate ESG performance disclosure score on the COC and idiosyncratic risk. The robustness of the findings is tested and confirmed in several ways, including a sensitivity test. Furthermore, the instrumental variable approach is used to address potential endogeneity issues.

A favourable association was found between a higher corporate ESG performance disclosure score and cheaper resources financing. The evidence also supports the mitigating impact of corporate ESG performance disclosure score on the company’s idiosyncratic risk as a strong complement for access to a cheaper source of funds. The findings strongly support both hypotheses of this study.

This study extends the current body of knowledge addressing these associations. Further studies should expand the investigation to non-listed or small and medium-sized companies. Additionally, future studies could contribute to the literature by including other moderating variables, such as a country’s cultural environment and diverse economic situations.

An extensive literature review suggests that this study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first that simultaneously evaluates the impact of corporate ESG performance disclosure on a company’s COC and idiosyncratic risk.

This paper aims to investigate whether there are relationships among corporate disclosure of environmental, social and governance (ESG) and firms’ operational (ROA), financial (ROE) and market performance (Tobin’s Q), and if these relationships are positives or negatives or even neutral.

The study sample covers US S&P 500-listed companies during the period 2009 to 2018. Panel regression analysis was used to examine the study hypotheses and achieve the study aims.

The results showed that ESG disclosure positively affects a firms’ performance measures. However, measuring ESG sub-components separately showed that environmental (EVN) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure is negatively associated with ROA and ROE. EVN and CSR disclosure is positively related to Tobin’s Q. Further, corporate governance (CG) disclosure is positively related to ROA and Tobin’s Q, and negatively related to ROE. More importantly, ESG, CSR, EVN and CG tend to be higher with firms that have high assets and high financial leverage. Furthermore, the higher level of ESG, EVN, CSR and CG disclosure, the higher the ROA and ROE.

The study limns a vision of the role of ESG on firm performance. This study tries to determine whether there are relationships among all ESG disclosure and FP, and if they are positive, negative or even neutral.