Search results

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.

This study analyses the role of individuals' objective financial knowledge in shaping preferences for ethical intermediaries and sustainable investments in Italy. Another goal of this study is to assess the impact of individuals' misperceptions about their own financial knowledge and to test for gender-related differences in attitudes towards socially responsible investing (SRI).

Using nationally representative microdata from the Bank of Italy’s “Italian Literacy and Financial Competence Survey” (IACOFI), the authors use probit models, extended to account for potential endogeneity issues, to assess the causal effects of financial knowledge and confidence on stated preferences for SRI. Empirical models also allow to explicitly assess the moderating role of gender on the effects of financial knowledge and confidence on attitudes towards sustainable investing.

Results indicate that individuals' preferences for sustainable finance significantly increase with financial knowledge, suggesting that inadequate financial competencies represent a barrier to participation in SRI. At the same time, lack of confidence in one’s own financial knowledge significantly hampers attitudes towards sustainable investments. Furthermore, the authors show that women have a greater preference for sustainable finance than men and point out that financial knowledge and confidence exert heterogenous effects on attitudes towards SRI.

This study provides several contributions to the literature on SRI. First, the authors give evidence of the causal effect of financial knowledge on preferences for both ethical financial intermediaries and sustainable investments. Moreover, this is the first study to investigate the role of financial underconfidence bias in shaping individuals' SRI attitudes. Finally, extending previous research, the authors assess differences in SRI preferences between women and men and provide novel evidence on gender-related heterogeneity in the effects of financial knowledge and underconfidence.

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.

Grounded in the stakeholder theory and signaling theory, this study aims to broaden the research agenda on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing by uncovering public sentiments and key themes using Twitter data spanning from 2009 to 2022.

Using various machine learning models for text tonality analysis and topic modeling, this research scrutinizes 1,842,985 Twitter texts to extract prevalent ESG investing trends and gauge their sentiment.

Gibbs Sampling Dirichlet Multinomial Mixture emerges as the optimal topic modeling method, unveiling significant topics such as “Physical risk of climate change,” “Employee Health, Safety and well-being” and “Water management and Scarcity.” RoBERTa, an attention-based model, outperforms other machine learning models in sentiment analysis, revealing a predominantly positive shift in public sentiment toward ESG investing over the past five years.

This study establishes a framework for sentiment analysis and topic modeling on alternative data, offering a foundation for future research. Prospective studies can enhance insights by incorporating data from additional social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Leveraging unstructured data on ESG from platforms like Twitter provides a novel avenue to capture company-related information, supplementing traditional self-reported sustainability disclosures. This approach opens new possibilities for understanding a company’s ESG standing.

By shedding light on public perceptions of ESG investing, this research uncovers influential factors that often elude traditional corporate reporting. The findings empower both investors and the general public, aiding managers in refining ESG and management strategies.

This study marks a groundbreaking contribution to scholarly exploration, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, by being the first to analyze unstructured Twitter data in the context of ESG investing, offering unique insights and advancing the understanding of this emerging field.

The main goal of this paper is better understand the risk/return trade-off of investing in socially responsible investment funds (SRIF) and green investment funds (GIF).

To achieve our aim a green investment fund portfolio, a socially responsible investment portfolio and a conventional fund (CF) portfolio from the United States of America (USA) were selected to compare the efficiency of these three different portfolios, by using Value-Based Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology.

The results point out that SRIF and GIF are more efficient than CF. For five years, the CFs have not outperformed the GIF.

The results suggest that there is a growing awareness on the part of investors that sustainable companies are the companies that will allow a better quality of life and a more sustainable environment. It seems that somehow managers and investors are aware that the market will compensate them for thinking about a cleaner and more equitable world.

Purpose: This research discusses the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its link to a financial performance metric called net interest margin (NIM) in the context of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). CSR initiatives can lead to long-term sustainability and improved financial performance, attracting investors seeking to align their investments with their values.

Need for the Study: The research composes portfolios based on financial companies’ CSR performance and NIM ratios to help investors understand the difference between CSR and financial performance, making investment decisions based on their portfolio goals and values. Striking a balance between sustainability and the financial performance of financial companies, will help investors find a suitable balance between portfolios for investment purposes.

Methodology: The authors used data from 55 financial companies for daily returns from 2014–2015 to 2021–2022 and used descriptive statistics to measure the performance of portfolios.

Findings: The findings suggest that financial companies in India have improved their CSR scores over time, indicating an increased focus on integrating socially responsible practices into their operations. The data also show that NBFCs are catching up with banks regarding CSR scores, and some NBFC portfolios even outperform banks regarding returns. However, the study also highlights the need for some companies to focus more on CSR and business operations.

Practical Implications: The results serve as a benchmark for financial companies to assess their relative CSR performance, highlighting the need for companies to focus on integrating socially responsible practices into their operations and guiding areas where companies can improve.

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.

This paper aims to provide a bibliometric review and visualisation analysis of the literature on Sustainable Stock Indices (SSI) between January 2001 and March 2022. The purpose of performing this bibliometric analysis is to empirically report the trend, intellectual structure, knowledge development directions and identify prospective research topics in the area of SSI.

A total of 222 publications were selected after evaluating, identifying and synthesising the extensive publications using the Preferred Reporting Items for the Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) approach. The articles were extracted from the databases of SCOPUS, Web of Science and Google Scholar. The study uses VOSviewer and RStudio software to answer four research questions.

The results signify that there has been a considerable increase in the level of research considering SSI. Further, the study shows that SSI is among the top five trending keywords in the research related to finance and environment. Most papers considered as a sample for this study are based on Dow Jones Sustainable Indices. Noteworthy, very few economies are participating in this research domain, and the significant contribution is from the developed countries.

The present review paper may assist the researchers in identifying the trending research topics in this domain. It may serve as a roadmap for several further studies in the area.

This study is unique in terms of reviewing the literature based on SSI. Further, it provides a holistic view of the current trend, global position and research hotspots of SSI, which has important implications for future research.

This study aims to examine the value orientations of New Zealand agribusiness investors and how these orientations influence their reactions to the environmental and social implications of agribusinesses.

In the context of the New Zealand agricultural sector, the views of investors as published in print and broadcast media between 2018 and 2022 are gathered. The study uses qualitative content analysis to analyse the data. The study is based on the value-belief-norm theory.

The study reveals that New Zealand agribusiness investors express concern about the environmental (biospheric) and social (altruistic) impacts of the agribusiness sector, prompting calls for greater transparency, climate adaptation and ethical investment options. Additionally, they actively support local businesses to benefit their communities and preserve cultural heritage. Despite these biospheric and altruistic tendencies, investors also prioritise financial and non-financial interests (egoistic). This highlights a nuanced perspective guiding their investment choices – a balance between self-interest and contributing to the greater good. This signals a shift towards socially and environmentally responsible investment practices driven by multifaceted values.

The findings of this study highlight the role of non-pecuniary motives, like values, in determining the relevance of environmental and social information.

The study’s findings offer insight to agribusinesses on how investors’ value orientations shape their investment decisions. This understanding can guide businesses in framing a reporting strategy that enhances the likelihood of investors perceiving reporting as relevant and persuasive, thereby attracting more investments. In turn, this tailored reporting approach assists investors in making well-informed decisions in assessing the environmental and societal risks of agribusinesses.

The study offers a framework explaining how agribusinesses can increase the likelihood of investors finding firms reporting relevant and persuasive, leading to increased investments in environmentally and socially sustainable practices.

This study aims to empirically investigates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on ethical and nonethical stocks in Indonesia. Ethical stocks which are characterized by moral-based companies’ activities and lower debt are expected to have better resilience during the COVID-19 crisis compared to nonethical stock.

This study observes 589 firms of ethical and nonethical stock during sample periods ranging from March 2, 2020 (first case announced) to June 30, 2021. Panel regression, with some control variables, was applied.

Testing firms in Indonesia revealed a significant difference in stock resilience, in which ethical stock has a better resilience compared to nonethical, with Islamic socially responsible investment (SRI) stock having the highest resilience, followed by Islamic stock and then SRI stock. This study documents a significant effect of some financial criteria on the stock resilience, namely, return market (RM), market capitalization (MCAP) and share turnover (TURN). Overall, after splitting the sample into different time horizons, this study consistently reveals that ethical firms have better resilience compared to nonethical stocks.

This study makes several contributions to the literature on Islamic finance, especially concerning Islamic screening with SRI factors. In practical terms, this study supports the argument that focusing on integrating environmental, social and governance criteria in sharia screening will improve the quality of Islamic firms. The “Islamic” label is not only a marketing label but also a quality certification.

This study can be used as a reference for developing Islamic finance more focused on sustainability issues including socioeconomic and human development by improving the quality of screening of Islamic firms. Therefore, this study suggests that the establishment of Islamic SRI index is very crucial and significant to promote ethical-based investment.