Search results

Sustainable development (SD) is widely acknowledged as the center around which all development efforts should revolve. Banking is a crucial component of SD, and the adoption of sustainable banking practices by various banking institutions is a powerful catalyst for its achievement. This paper aims to investigate the level of adoption of environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators in India and the extent to which financial institutions use these strategies. In addition, the banks have been classified according to their sustainable banking performance and showing a relationship between ESG and sustainability.

An ESG framework has been developed for the Indian banking system that focuses on the behavior of banks. The evaluation of literature helps to identify the gaps in particular frameworks for analyzing sustainable banking practices in developing nations because of the variation in economic criteria between developed and developing countries. An attempt to construct a common framework for measuring the banking sector’s sustainable efforts has been done in the past. Specifically in India, where the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability are of equal importance to governance indicators, these studies fall short of providing relevant indicators. Multiple financial reports, nonfinancial reports, corporate social responsibility reports and business responsibility reports of this sector were analyzed using content analysis techniques against ESG indicators for sustainability attainment.

The result of this study shows that both the sectors are disclosing their environmental indicators more as compared to other dimensions. While the analysis says that private companies are going better than public companies in terms of disclosing their ESG indicators. As compared to the international banking sector, adoption of Global Reporting Initiatives standards, United Nations Environment Programme Financial Initiatives (UNEP FI), Green Credit Policy and Equator Principles (EP) is near to the ground in India. IDFC bank is the only entity that started implementing EP practices and Yes bank also is doing a wonderful implementation of the green policies and is the signatory to UNEP FI.

The current state of sustainable banking in India is reflected in the implementation of the proposed framework. To better integrate sustainability problems into banking, this study provides helpful information for banks and other stakeholders. In addition, this study corrects the lack of research in the Indian context on sustainable banking.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge by far, this is one of the prime studies to inspect the degree of ESG disclosure by the Indian banking sector in their sustainability report.

This study aims to examine how audit committee (AC) attributes influence quality and quantity disclosure of energy consumed by the listed nonfinancial firms for the period of five years (2016–2020). The study aims at providing empirical evidence on how board of director’s independence influences the relationship between AC attributes and firms’ energy in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) on world climate policy.

The study obtained data from a sample of 83 listed nonfinancial firms, content analysis technique was used to compute energy disclosure indexes using global reporting initiative standards, while regression analysis was conducted to test the relationship among research variables.

The study revealed that AC independence, diversity and meetings were significantly related with energy disclosure. Also, the study found that other variables were insignificantly related with energy disclosure.

The study is constrained for not considering all listed firms in the country. Furthermore, the study considered selected attributes, other important audit-committee size attributes such as audit-committee size, audit-committee size tenure could be study in by the future study.

The study’s findings would have practical implications for corporations and other business organizations seeking to actively involve the energy-related SDGs 7 and 13 in their business models and successfully communicate these efforts to stakeholders.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first study that provides empirical evidence on the effect of AC attributes on the energy disclosure using effect of board independence as moderator in Nigeria.

The global economy has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed greater responsibility on companies to fulfill their obligations to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) amid the crisis. This chapter investigates the role of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes in improving a firm's CSR in the emerging economy of Jordan and how the COVID-19 pandemic modifies this relationship. Using a Jordanian sample of 655 firm-year observations during the 2014–2021 period, the research results show that older CEOs, well-educated CEOs, CEOs' remuneration, and CEOs' ownership positively correlate with CSR reporting. However, long-tenured CEOs are associated with lower CSR initiatives. The subsample analysis findings also validate the significance of CEO attributes in improving CSR practice during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the prepandemic period. These findings are beneficial for the regulatory setters to understand better whether CEO attributes are linked to engagement in CSR-related information. This research is among the limited number of studies that have explored how CEO attributes impact CSR reporting for the stakeholder's welfare. Moreover, it uniquely concentrated on contrasting the findings before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To achieve sustainable development objectives, managers are encouraged to implement best practices in corporate social and environmental responsibility within their establishments. The main objective of this chapter is to assess the quality of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) communication for Moroccan financial institutions. This chapter is devoted to the content analysis of the annual reports of 14 financial institutions listed in Morocco regarding ESG strategies between 2017 and 2021. The reference assessment tool we used is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards (2016), based on six principles. Each principle contains requirements and guidance on how to apply it. These principles are summarized in the following: Accuracy, Balance, Clarity, Comparability, Reliability, and Timeliness. The sample is composed of 14 financial institutions listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange. After checking the content of the annual reports of listed Moroccan financial institutions, we detected several shortcomings in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting behavior. Companies avoid disclosing information about negative events and performance. We saw this as a bad sign for stakeholders. The results showed a significant gap between the GRI standards and the content of the annual reports. These weaknesses mainly concern accuracy, comparability, and, timeliness, hence the need to carry out corrective measures to improve the quality of ESG practices within Moroccan financial institutions. One of the limitations of this research is its focus on financial institutions. However, it is possible to broaden the scope of the research by assessing the quality of ESG communication for nonfinancial companies.

This paper aims to contribute to the development of the European Union (EU) regulatory environment for sustainability reporting by analyzing how materiality is defined in the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and by examining the added value and challenges of legalizing reporting and materiality requirements from both regulatory and practical company perspectives. It provides insights on whether this is reflected by EU pharmaceutical companies and to what extent companies report information on their materiality analysis process.

Doctrinal analysis was used to examine regulatory instruments. Qualitative document analysis was used to analyze companies’ reports. The added value and challenges were examined using a governance approach. It focused on legalizing reporting and materiality requirements, with a brief extension to corporate management and organization studies.

Materiality has evolved from a vague concept in the NFRD toward double materiality in the CSRD. This was reflected by the industry, but reports revealed inconsistencies in materiality definitions and reported information. Challenges include lack of self-reflection and company-centric perceptions of materiality. Companies should explain how they identify relevant stakeholders and how input is considered in decision-making.

Managers must consider how they conduct materiality assessments to meet society’s expectations. The underlying processes should be explained to increase the credibility of reports. Sustainability reporting should be seen as a corporate governance tool.

This work contributes to the literature on materiality in sustainability reporting and to the debate on the need for a holistic, society-centric approach to enhance the sustainability of companies.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting has been widely accepted as a vital tool for communicating with stakeholders on a range of social, environmental, and governance issues, but how companies define, interpret, apply, integrate, and communicate their CSR efforts and impacts in corporate reporting is anything but a straightforward task. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the concept of materiality in CSR reporting and demonstrate practical examples of good CSR and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reporting practices. We chose the aviation industry because of its economic relevance, constant growth, and future expected changes in the aftermath of COVID-19. In addition, airlines affect many of the SDGs directly and indirectly with contending results. This chapter is timely because of the growing willingness by companies to integrate CSR and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) thinking into the corporate strategy and business operations using materiality assessment and enhancing their competitive advantage and ability to maintain long-term value and because ESG and ethical investing have become part of the mainstream investing. Thus, this chapter contributes to an understanding of the wide range of existing and new reporting frameworks and regulations and reinforces the importance of discussing how this diversity of approaches can affect the work toward worldwide comparability of CSR and sustainability reporting.

This study aims to examine the effect of sustainability report quality (SRQ) on information risk. This research also aims to examine the effect of SRQ on stock market participation through information risk.

The research sample includes 120 firm-years listed on the Sri Kehati Index period of 2017–2021. The hypothesis test uses firm and industry effect regression analysis. SRQ is measured by the existence of a sustainability committee and external assurance. The information risk is measured by bid-ask spread. Stock market participation is measured by volume of stock trading.

Based on the data analysis, this investigation finds that SRQ reduces information risk. This research also finds that SRQ improves stock market participation by reducing information risk.

First, this examination gives new evidence of SRQ to promote information environment improvement. Second, this examination contributes to providing the role of SRQ in an emerging market, such as Indonesia. Third, this examination contributes to providing the evaluation standard for sustainability reporting quality in Indonesia, since Indonesia has no specific standard for the sustainability report. Fourth, this examination contributes to filling the previous gap.

The study aims to examine how the information disclosed by the managers in the management discussion and analysis (MD&A) reports varies at the different levels of corporate performance.

To understand this quantile effect, first OLS technique was adopted and then, the quantile regression method was applied to explore the impact of MD&A disclosures on the firm performance across the lower and upper quantiles. The sample size for the study is 490 firms’ year observations for the period 2016–2022.

The results of the study demonstrate the negative but significant relationship between MD&A disclosures and corporate performance, supporting the two management strategies of “competitive disadvantage” in case of good performance and “management impression strategy” in case of poor performance. Furthermore, with other corporate governance variables, both the size of the board and the number of independent directors on the board are positively significant only in the case of the upper quantile indicating the heterogeneity in the relationship between the performance and the MD&A disclosures. Therefore, the overall findings of the study support that these results contradict the agency theory and the stakeholders’ theory as managers are not acting well as agents on behalf of the investors and work well only when they are controlled by the large board having more independent directors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study so far has incorporated quantile regression to assess the effect of MD&A disclosures on company performance at various levels of the firm performance, which gives more robust insights about the viewpoint of the managers on the different level of the firm performance. In other words, this study highlights the important information as to how the information provided in the MD&A reports varies as per the good or poor performance of the companies.

This study aims to analyze how sustainability, through an efficient knowledge management (KM) system, can serve as a driving force with respect to corporate culture and reputation. The research questions that guided this study are mainly the following: Are KM and sustainability related? Can culture strengthen the link between KM and sustainability? Can the link between KM and sustainability be affected by reputation?

The methodological approach adopted corresponds to qualitative research of analysis on the reference literature in the international field, also supported by empirical analysis.

In this study, the authors show that there is no explicit correlation between sustainability and KM. This relationship, in fact, is not underlined in nonfinancial reporting because it is absent or because it is not considered relevant. Too often sustainability is reduced to a mere relational and reputational tool, ignoring the fact it must be considered a consequence and not the main goal to improve companies’ culture.

The sample studied by the authors refers to the top 40 companies listed on the Italian market, not allowing to generalize the findings across the international context.

The practical implications that could result from making explicit the relationship between sustainability and KM are multiple: the substantial benefits of the reputational aspect, an increase in the economic value related to sustainability; to ensure the going concern of the company and implement its ability to produce and share value in the long term.

The social benefits of a stronger relationship between sustainability and KM are related to the possibility to improve the wealth of all the stakeholders.

This paper analyzes the links between sustainability and KM to understand the influence of these factors on corporate culture and reputation.

In the last two decades, risk reporting has followed a normative and calculative culture rather than the “materiality” of data. Although integrated reporting (IR) has become flooded with extra information, it does not adequately disseminate material information to stakeholders. In addition, the poor tone from the top diminishes creativity. This study aims to investigate how companies creatively address issues of the materiality of risk information in IR and how IR can be aligned with enterprise risk management.

Qualitative research was conducted via interviews with 50 chief risk officers and senior management executives in the Indian and UK insurance markets.

Overall, five institutions were observed to exhibit elements of being early adopters of institutional creativity. This confirmed the present study’s theoretical contribution of five divergent types of early adopters. The motivations for creativity are reflected in the resources available to these institutions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides a new insight into IR from internal mechanisms to deal with issue of materiality.