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The purpose of this study is to analyze the intersection of research on impact investing and its closely related financial vehicles.

The paper explores 196 articles collected from Scopus and Web of Science using bibliometric and content analysis methodologies.

Despite a growing academic interest in impact investing, scholars generally investigate impact investing as a social phenomenon, using the specific financial mechanism of social impact bonds. This perspective potentially deflates the complex nature of impact investing, which actually combines both social and financial targets and uses a plurality of financial vehicles to reach its goals.

The emerging themes identified will provide both academics and practitioners additional tools to further the debate on impact investing and the understanding of its potential and limits according to the different financial forms it takes. This review should pave the way for a discussion about the boundaries of the social impact sector itself.

Despite the strong international commitment toward impact investing, tensions still exist. A comprehensive overview on the relevant aspects not yet thoroughly investigated will foster the growth of impact investments.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first holistic overview of impact investing, that jointly examines both literature on impact investing and literature on the correlated financial products used in the industry. The result is a comprehensive report of what is known about impact investing in its different financial forms, opening up new pathways for future studies.

This study aims to provide a precise understanding of how corporate sustainability information is used in socially responsible investing (SRI). The study is motivated by the lack of a recognised body of knowledge on this issue. This study, therefore, collates and reviews relevant studies (67 studies) to provide guidance to investors interested in SRI and identify a research agenda for academics desiring to contribute to this area.

This study conducts a systemic literature review employing recognised key words and searching the Web of Science. HistCite is utilised to ensure important cited studies are not missed from the collection. The review was conducted from two perspectives: (1) sources of sustainability information and (2) how the information is used in SRI.

The review identifies five major sources of sustainability information, including corporate reports, ESG ratings, industry affiliation, news and private communication with firms. These sources of information play different roles in the cross section of SRI strategies (i.e. negative and positive screening, active ownership and integration). This study provides guidance on how to use this information in SRI and provides recommendations for future research on how analysts interact with the information, how different informational characteristics impact implementation, ways to improve data quality, improvements to analysis methods and where data use needs to be extended into new strategies.

This review contributes to the SRI literature by inventorying studies of an important, yet omitted aspect, namely, sustainability information. This work also enriches the literature on corporate sustainability information by investigating how this information can be used for a specific purpose, namely, SRI. Given the increasing interest in SRI, this review will provide much-needed guidance for a range of practitioners, including investors and regulators.

Over the past two decades, the topics of Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have attracted an increasing amount of interest, reflecting a growing sensitivity of investors and corporations towards environmental, social and governance issues.

This survey offers an overview of the academic literature on ESG/CSR through the lens of investors, institutions and firms. We first discuss the definitions of ESG and CSR and their relationship to each other.

We next describe how ESG is measured and note problems with the measurement of and quality of ESG data and discrepancies between different measures of ESG. We then turn our attention to investors, examining what types of investors invest in ESG and the role of institutional investors in ESG. From the firm's perspective, we discuss why firms themselves conduct ESG. We also summarize the literature on the impact of ESG on firms: how ESG affects firms' financing, disclosure and reporting activities and firm performance. Finally, we describe other consequences of the focus of ESG and CSR on firms and investors.

This survey offers an overview of the academic literature on ESG/CSR through the lens of investors, institutions and firms.

Sustainable investments (SI) represent a promising class of investments, combining financial returns with mitigating environmental challenges, achieving SDG goals and creating a positive business impact. An enhanced global focus on climate change developments in the backdrop of COP26 and COP27, raised the need for comprehensive literature mapping, to understand the emerging themes and future research arenas in this field.

The authors apply a quali–quantitative approach of bibliometric methods coupled with content analysis, to review 1,022 articles obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) database for 1991–2023.

The results identify the leading authors and their collaborations, impactful journals and pioneering articles in sustainable investment literature. The authors also indicate seven major themes of SI to be financial performance; fiduciary duty; CSR; construction of ESG-based portfolios; sustainability assessment tools and mechanisms; investor behavior; and impact investing. Further, content analysis of literature from 2020 to 2023 highlights emerging research issues to be SDG financing via green bonds and social impact bonds; investor impact creation via shareholder engagement and field building strategies; and governance related determinants of firm-level sustainable investments. Finally, the authors discuss the research gaps across these themes and identify future research questions.

This paper crystallizes research themes in sustainable investment literature using a vast coverage of globally conducted studies published in reputed journals till date. The findings of this study coupled with future research questions provide a well-grounded foundation for new researchers to further explore the emerging dimensions of this field.

This paper offers a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on social finance. It provides an overview of the research field by identifying gaps in the existing academic literature and presenting future research directions.

The study uses co-word analysis and visualization mapping techniques.

This study's findings show that the social finance research field comprises five main research clusters and four main research hotspots—impact investing, social entrepreneurship, social impact bonds, and social innovation—which represent the core of this research domain. The authors also identify the researchers and the research institutions that have contributed to the development of social finance. In addition, emerging research areas are mapped and discussed.

Compared with most previous literature reviews, this work provides a more complete and objective analysis of the entire social finance landscape by revealing the trends and evolving dynamics that characterize its development. To this end, clear terminological boundaries have not yet been established in social finance. The field appears immature because only a few researchers have contributed to it, and papers have yet to be published by top finance journals. Finally, the findings of this research provide directions for future studies.

The aim of this paper is to study whether adoption of sustainability policies by firms makes their stock market performance resilient to the downside risk during the crisis period.

The paper empirically examines the relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) and stock market performance for Indian companies that have consistently been a part of Refinitiv Eikon ESG database. Further, the study examines whether there exist significant differences in stock market performance of high ESG and low ESG-compliant firms during crisis period. The sample was made up of 70 Indian firms studied over the period 2016–2019 defined as “normal period” as well as for the declared COVID-19 crisis period, i.e. January–March 2020, and full year 2020. The authors used multivariate panel data regression, robust least square multivariate regression, pooled OLS model and two-stage least square regression method.

The study extends the existing literature by investigating the impact of ESG performance on market value of firms during the crisis period. Based on the stakeholder and “flight to safety” theory, the authors hypothesized that ESG would have significant positive effect on the stock market performance during crisis period; however, the results provide robust evidence that in a well-specified model capturing the effect of accounting-based measures of performance, Size, Growth, Risk and Dividend yield, ESG had no explanatory power over the stock market performance of ESG-compliant firms during crisis period. Furthermore, no significant difference in stock market performance indicators between high and low ESG-compliant firms was observed during the crisis period of 1Q2020 as well as for full year 2020. On contrary, the study finds dividend yield to be statistically significant in determining stock market performance of Indian firms during crisis period. The study extends the existing literature by coining the term, “ESG irrelevance” during crisis period.

The main limitation of this study is its limited sample size because there are very few Indian firms that have secured consistent ESG rating. The study focuses on consistently rated firms to avoid the impact of “greenwashing”. Further, the study is focused on India, which limits the generalizability of our findings to other emerging countries.

To the best of our knowledge, this is among the first few studies that examines sustainability and stock market performance of Indian firms during COVID-19-led crisis period. Our findings highlight no significant difference between stock market performance of high ESG firms and low ESG firms indicating that investors who wish to create wealth by investing in ESG-compliant stocks in India can do so without worrying about the companies’ ESG rating scores.

Introduction: This chapter is intended to link the embracing strategy of ‘socially responsible investment’ with the apparent cause of economic destruction ‘financial crimes’. Today’s financial world is not always associated with ethics and morality, but it does not mean rising investments cause rising financial crimes. Socially responsible investing (SRI) has been rising, and many of today’s investors are interested in tracking ethically sound companies. Investors find a great way to invest around many investment opportunities, while socially responsible investors work with little social cause. This increasing literacy over SRI notably helps to reduce investments in unethical grounds which in turn reduces financial crimes.

Design/methodology: This work is premised on desk research. Conceptual and documentary methods were used in the study. The tertiary data source has been used in the study to develop a template describing the working of SRI in fixing financial crimes.

Findings: Findings of this study detail: a breakdown of industries that comes under SRI, channels of financial crimes, impact of SRI on financial crimes, and design an action plan for more effective environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-based investments to fix problems of financial crimes in the Indian economy.

Practical implications: The model of SRI has unfolded these days. While the purpose of these funds differs, they generally swear off the weapons industry and avoid ‘sin stocks’. In-depth analysis of this study area enables building quality investment strategy among investors and thereby helps to combat financial crimes.

This paper examines the effect of ESG ratings and its dimensions (environmental, social and governance) on the financial performance of JSE-listed firms included in FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Index.

The paper employs panel data covering 40 JSE-listed firms included in FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Index between 2015 and 2019. The paper employs the two-stage least squares (2SLS) instrumental variable regression technique to estimate the effect of ESG ratings and its dimensions (environmental, social and governance) on both accounting- and market-based performance indicators.

The results of the two-stage least squares instrumental estimation analysis reveal that investment in ESG initiatives improves both accounting- and market-based indicators of financial performance. Of the ESG pillars, the paper finds environmental initiatives improves firms' financial bottom line and market performance, while a firm's social and governance practices are observed to have no effect on a firm's accounting and market performance measures.

The insights from this study proffers policy implications for firms' management, investors and regulatory authorities.

As far as the authors are concerned, this paper presents the first empirical analysis on the contribution of ESG ratings on financial performance in South Africa.

The current research takes a closer look at the investment intention of Generation Z and its relation to investing in a speculative market. The study applies the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to understand the dominant factors leading to Generation Z investment decisions in speculative markets. The main objective is to identify whether these decisions are learnt decisions or herd behaviours.

Structural equation modelling is used to evaluate the research model, and examine the mediation effect of financial literacy using bootstrapping in AMOS software. Information was gathered from 271 students studying at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences. The questionnaire used for the survey was adapted from previous related studies examining the TPB.

The findings show financial literacy and behavioural outcome (attitude) are key components associated with investment intention. Motivation to comply (subjective norm) affects the intention to invest if mediated by financial literacy. The subjective norm has no bearing on the intention to invest in a speculative market. This implies social peers have no bearing on their intention to invest unless mediated by financial literacy.

The main limitation of the study is that the group from which the sample is drawn consists of all students at a state-funded university who receive stipends. This limits the applicability of related findings. Furthermore, the variables have dynamic properties, which implies their impacts may vary over time.

Generation Z comprises a large number of small investors who can make a significant difference to the overall economic trends of the country. The digital world, which is time- and space-infinite, is shaping the next generation. It is only possible to reach and sway their opinions by conducting extensive behavioural science research.

Academic institutions ought to be viewed as a resource for conducting additional in-depth research on a variety of subjects to assist and shape the current generation for a better future.

Although the TPB has been used by many researchers to explore the behavioural intention of Generation Z, very few have used financial literacy as a perceived behaviour control to study its direct and indirect effects on behaviour intention.

The case examines the development and launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on JUST Capital's socially responsible corporate ranking methodologies. The case provides a market overview of Environment, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and socially responsible investing (SRI), what has driven growth in those areas worldwide, and several best-practice investment approaches. Following the overview, the case describes the founding and development of JUST Capital, explores JUST Capital's ranking methodologies, and presents the decision point faced by the CEO: requisite selection of one of three strategies in order for JUST Capital to generate “self-sustaining” revenue.