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Introduction: The global financial crisis has affected the financial markets and has had social consequences in addition to economic ones. The concept of ‘sustainability’ concerns firms reaching their main corporate goals. So, to maximise corporate financial performance (FINP), firms pay attention to non-financial data, such as elements of governance, social, and environmental concerns (henceforth referred to as ESG). Therefore, non-financial information provided by EGS factors measured by the ESG score has a crucial role in incorporating strategy and firm performance.

Purpose: This chapter looks at how ESG scores affect the performance of firms. The term ‘ESG’ describes how corporate operations include ESG principles. The ESG score is a novel way to gauge a company’s sustainability.

Methodology: ESG practices are a current phenomenon that has taken the attention of researchers in the last decades. Besides the amount of research conducted, researchers still need consensus regarding its impact. This chapter implements a systematic literature review to compile the research on ESG performance (ESGP) and how it affects business performance.

Findings: Businesses can incorporate sustainability practices into their operations with the help of ESG reports. ESG reports and scores provide non-financial information, which is crucial for businesses to achieve sustainability in their activities and attract more investors. The chapter contributes to the literature by creating value through a comprehensive and theoretical literature review.

Based on stakeholder, agency and institutional theory, this study aims to examine the role of institutional ownership in the relationship between environmental, social and governance practices and CEO compensation.

Utilizing a fixed-effect panel regression analysis, this research utilized a panel data approach, analyzing data spanning from 2014 to 2021, focusing on US companies listed on the S&P500 stock market index. The dataset encompassed 219 companies, leading to a total of 1,533 observations.

The analysis identified that environmental scores significantly impact CEO equity-linked compensation, unlike social and governance scores. Additionally, it was found that institutional ownership acts as a moderating factor in the relationship between the environmental score and CEO equity-linked compensation, as well as the association between the social score and CEO equity-linked compensation. Interestingly, the direction of these moderating effects varied between the two relationships, suggesting a nuanced role of institutional ownership.

This research makes a unique contribution to the field of corporate governance by exploring the relatively understudied area of institutional ownership's influence on the ESG practices–CEO compensation nexus.

The study aims to analyse the race towards green development and United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the cases of Huawei and Shell. Both companies are the leaders in their respective industries. Huawei is an example case study representing the information and communications technology (ICT) industry whereas Shell is an example case study representing the oil and gas industry. The research analyses of the races in achieving UN SDGs were undertaken based on the innovation diffusion framework with the use of machine learning algorithms trained to extract data on sustainability activities and initiatives.

The research analyses the two case studies of Huawei and Shell. The research was undertaken through the steps of training machine learning algorithms, industry benchmarking and evaluating the performance of the race. The analyses regarding the activities and initiatives of Huawei and Shell in contributing towards SDGs are based on the data in the past 10 years (Years 2010–2019) using machine learning to extract data on sustainability activities and initiatives. In the case of Huawei, 313 sustainability reports were fed to the unsupervised machine learning algorithms revealing 15,101 sustainability actions and initiatives related to UN SDGs in the ICT industry. In the case of Shell, 2,015 sustainability reports were fed to the unsupervised machine learning algorithms revealing 47,365 sustainability actions and initiatives related to UN SDGs in the oil and gas industry.

The analyses of findings revealed that Huawei and Shell performed very well in progressing towards the UN SDGs. Huawei had strong performance in the ICT industry with regard to SDGs No. 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12 and 16 while Shell had strong performance in the oil and gas industry with regard to SDGs No. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12 and 16. Both companies had placed a focus on achieving SDG 12 responsible consumption and production, SDG 7 affordable and clean energy and SDG 4 quality education. The synthesised business model innovations of Huawei and Shell had shown their environmental, social and governance strategies – Huawei’s 2030 vision for green development and Shell’s 2050 vision for net zero emissions.

The five pillars of people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership according to the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development have shown the way a company operates to promote sustainable eco-systems. The extent to which both Huawei and Shell link corporate strategies to the UN SDGs has reflected their implementation progress. Furthermore, the business model innovations of Huawei and Shell provides a useful framework which can be applied to encourage other companies/organisations in various industries to undertake ESG activities in practice.

The main contribution of this research is the application of machine learning algorithms and the innovation diffusion model in analysing the SDGs performance. The study applies the innovation diffusion framework to explore strategic actions and initiatives of Huawei and Shell in transitioning towards sustainability. The use of machine learning algorithms has identified their sustainability approach in achieving the UN SDGs.

This study explores the moderating effect of board gender diversity (BGD) between a firm's Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance and Economic value added (EVA) using NSE-listed 331 companies' data from 2015 to 2020, forming 1986 firm-year observations.

Our study is based on panel data; hence, we use a system GMM panel regression model to confirm whether the BGD moderates ESG and EVA. We also address the endogeneity issues.

Overall, our study reported a positive moderating effect of BGD between ESG and EVA. Similar results were observed across the chemical and financial services industries. However, in the case of the healthcare and consumer goods industries, we did not find support for the moderating effect.

The implications of our results are considerable and relevant for regulators, governing bodies, and corporate managers. It helps them understand how BGD plays a vital role in influencing the effect of ESG on a firm's EVA.

No existing research has explored the moderating effect of BGD between ESG and EVA, to the authors' best knowledge. Therefore, our study extends the existing literature and further supports resource dependency, agency, and stakeholder theories of corporate governance.

In recent years, investing with robo-advisors has gained momentum and is seen as a simplifying approach for individual investors to participate in financial markets. This chapter contributes to a better understanding of the concept of a robo-advisory and its implications for private investors by discussing its past, present, and future. It explores key issues, like cost-efficiency, historical performance, and automation levels, based on research and industry insights. Moreover, this chapter examines a robo-advisor's benefits, limitations, and challenges, like behavioral biases, regulation, and risk profiling. Finally, the importance of the ongoing megatrends of AI and green investing is examined concerning a robo-advisory.

This chapter examines the patterns influencing the trajectory of fintech enterprises. With the looming challenge of climate change, the financial realm's responsibility in mitigating climate risks has surged into focus. This chapter investigates fintech enterprises' response to climate-related corporate social responsibility in six main domains: (1) climate risk assessment tools, (2) green bonds and sustainable investment tools, (3) ESG integration, (4) carbon trading and carbon credits, (5) sustainable banking, and (6) DeFi and climate initiatives. It also investigates how fintech firms recognize the impact of climate change within their official declarations and efforts to amplify consciousness about climate-related concerns. This chapter assesses climate-linked terminology and expressions using quantitative and qualitative approaches, illuminating these firms' dedication to assimilating climate risk within their operational blueprints.

The study aims to investigate market reactions associated with the JUST 100 rankings published by JUST Capital, a non-profit organization, as well as differences in financial reporting quality and performance between selected firms and their industry peers.

This study uses a sample of 431 firms selected as the 100 America’s Most Just Companies between 2016 and 2020 by JUST Capital. This study performs both an event study to determine whether the rankings are useful to investors and cross-sectional regression analyses on the characteristics of selected firms compared to their peers.

This study finds that investors react positively to selected firms around the time of the release of the JUST 100 rankings, suggesting that the rankings are decision-useful. This study also finds that selected firms exhibit higher accounting quality and financial performance than their peers.

Rankings may not be free from bias because of JUST Capital’s ownership of an exchange-traded fund.

The findings validate the rankings as well as the methodology used by JUST Capital, as they show market participants value firms that engage in socially responsible actions through their commitment to positively impact five key stakeholder groups: employees, customers, communities, environment and shareholders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that shows the importance of the JUST 100 rankings for investment decisions. Considering the growing push for companies to disclose environmental, social and governance (ESG) activities, this study provides evidence to support ESG disclosure regulations.

This paper aims to elucidate responsible leadership as a construct with strong moral and ethical underpinnings, as well as a focus on multiple stakeholders and the triple bottom line. This paper also highlights the interdependence of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of a business to achieve corporate sustainability.

This conceptual paper is the outcome of analysing and synthesizing the findings of the literature review on three main constructs: responsible leadership, triple bottom line and corporate sustainability. This review enabled the development of logical associations among these constructs.

The literature revealed logical associations between responsible leadership, the triple bottom line and corporate sustainability. All three constructs embody the three dimensions of economic, social and environmental sustainability, which form the basis of the associations.

Responsible leadership, grounded in stakeholder theory, goes beyond the traditional dyadic leader–follower relationship to influence multiple stakeholders within and outside the organization and achieve positive outcomes for both the organization and society. Multiple levels of outcomes and higher levels of organizational performance for businesses are the hallmarks of responsible leadership.

This paper highlights the importance of responsible leadership and triple bottom-line performance for corporate sustainability. Responsible leadership has the potential to create significant impact on business and society, to achieve long-term corporate sustainability. A conceptual model of responsible leadership is also proposed to show the association between responsible leadership, the triple bottom line and corporate sustainability.

The global energy sector draws significant stakeholder attention due to never-ending controversies surrounding its environmental impacts. Investors’ response to such controversies causes direct financial implications for these firms. Furthermore, environmental, social and governance (ESG) sensitivity, which is likely to safeguard the energy sector firms from such controversies, is itself conditional to the development stage of a country and its regulatory environment. Therefore, this study aims to investigate if the influence of ESG on the share price volatility (SPV) of energy sector firms is subject to the development stage of the countries.

The study investigates nine years of panel data of 93 global energy sector firms from developing and developed nations. Using dynamic two-way fixed effects estimation and computing robust standard errors to obtain the econometric results.

The main finding reveals that the impact of ESG on SPV is, indeed, subject to the development stage of the nations. Similar results are observed for the effects of the social dimension of ESG on SPV. While ESG impacts the SPV negatively for firms in developing economies, the impact is the opposite for firms in developed nations. In other words, strong ESG propositions induce share price stability for developing countries while destabilizing the firms in developed nations.

The policymakers should further streamline the regulations and policies related to ESG adoption and adherence. In practice, the energy sectors should streamline their operations. Firm managers, especially in the energy sector, should devise strategies with ESG as an essential component to safeguard their firms against environmental and market volatility and adversatives. The firms in developing nations should further strengthen their social dimension of ESG to foster social equity and harmony.

The study contributes through its niche investigations on the energy sector, which is very important for the world economy. The study is relevant in the current scenario when the world faces a severe energy crisis due to global supply chain issues.

This study aims to investigate the impact of climate risk disclosure by listed companies on the entry of green investors. It seeks to understand how proactive climate risk disclosure can attract green investment and the underlying mechanisms that facilitate this process.

Textual analysis is employed to assess the extent of climate risk disclosure in annual reports. The research constructs indicators for green investor entry and applies regression analysis to examine the relationship between climate risk disclosure and green investment, considering various mediating variables such as positive online news coverage, ESG scores, and corporate reputation.

Green investors are more likely to invest in companies with higher levels of climate risk disclosure. This relationship is robust across different types of firms, with non-state-owned, non-high-tech, large-scale firms, and those in the Eastern region showing a stronger attraction to green investors. Climate risk disclosure promotes green investment through the “signal transmission” mechanism, enhancing corporate reputation and ESG performance.

This paper extends the traditional theory of external incentives for corporate green development to include autonomous incentives through active climate risk disclosure. It provides new insights into the theory of corporate sustainable development and offers practical recommendations for enhancing corporate green development pathways. The study’s comprehensive approach and use of extensive data contribute valuable knowledge to the field of green investment and corporate sustainability.