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The chapter describes the recent history of Sustainability Indices in three Latin American countries: Brazil, Mexico, and Chile. In these countries, local Stock Exchanges have been recently launching their own Sustainability Indices. This ongoing trend may indicate a particular way of addressing Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) in the region. The chapter relies on secondary data, mainly documents published by the Stock Exchanges themselves, and on some selected academic and practitioner oriented articles. All three countries present some common features. In all cases, local stock markets launched Sustainability Indices, and their composition has been publicly available from the beginning. Consequently, SRI is now developing in the region in a different way from that of developed markets. The chapter is based on secondary data only. Further research may involve interviews and surveys with different stakeholders (i.e., investors, quoted companies, public officials). The illustration of a different way of developing an SRI market may help public officials and investors from other countries, either in Latin America or elsewhere, who intend to promote SRI. There are few studies on SRI in Latin America, and comparative research between different countries in the region is still rare.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore the proactive role played by investor relations officers (IROs) in enhancing the quality and delivery of corporate social performance (CSP) information to social responsibility investment (SRI) analysts and investors, thereby improving the link between CSP and corporate financial performance (CFP). The increasing pressures on corporations to produce and communicate CSP information will be described, as well as how the timely and meaningful communication of CSP can improve CFP.

Methodology/approach – Subsequent to a review of relevant literature, three case examples from McDonald’s, Nestlé, and Stora Enso illustrate Hockerts and Moir’s grounded theory framework that suggest how IROs can improve communication of CSP.

Findings – This chapter illustrates three levels of communicating CSP information. First, IROs target SRI investors and respond to ESG inquiries and surveys. At the second level, IROs integrate ESG information into business strategy and financial results. At the third level, IROs actively market CSP and create a two-way proactive dialogue between SRI investors and senior management and the board.

Practical implications – This chapter provides practical examples to improve ESG activities and their communication via the IRO to SRI analysts and investors.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter contributes to the literature on the CSP–CFP link by illustrating how proactive IROs are improving the CSP information channel to SRI securities analysts and investors. Furthermore, it advances the theory and research concerning the impact of the information channel between IROs and securities analysts behind the CSP–CFP link.

The anti-apartheid movement represented a cornerstone for socially responsible investors in the 1970s and 1980s driven by the willingness to promote lasting social change. What happened next in terms of socially responsible investing (SRI) in the free South Africa? This chapter explores the local development of SRI in South Africa post-apartheid.

An in-depth literature review combined with a content analysis 73 SRI funds’ investment mandates were undertaken to investigate the local development of SRI in South Africa over the period 1992–2012.

Mechanisms of local divergence and global convergence have both shaped the phenomenon of SRI in South Africa. SRI in South Africa represents a melting-pot of societal values anchored in a local developmental and transformative political vision, some local and global Islamic religious values, and worldwide SRI and CSR homogenisation trends.

This chapter is the first attempt to outline the mechanisms of local divergence and global convergence that have moulded SRI in a democratic South Africa.

The authors have examined the developments in law and in practice concerning integrated reporting. An integrated report combines the most material elements of information about corporate performance (re: financial, governance, social and environmental functioning) – currently reported in separate reports – into one coherent whole. The authors first explore the motivation of companies and legislators to introduce integrating reporting. Next, they analyse how integrated reporting can be supported by legislation thereby taking into account the existing regulatory environment.

Literature study; desk research, analysing integrated reports; organisation of an international academic conference (30 May 2012 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands).

EU law needs adjusting in the field of corporate annual reporting. Although integrated reporting is currently being explored by some frontrunners of the business community and is being encouraged by investors, the existing legal framework does not offer any incentive, nor is uniformity and credibility in the reporting of non-financial information stimulated. The law gives scant guidance to companies to that end. The authors argue that amending the mandatory EU framework can support the comparability and reliability of the corporate information. Moreover, a clear and sound EU framework on integrated corporate reporting will assist international companies in their reporting. Presently, companies have to comply with various regulations at an EU and a national level, which do not enhance a holistic view in corporate reporting. The authors provide options on how to do this. They suggest combining EU mandatory corporate reporting rules with the private regulatory reporting regime developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

Focus on EU and Dutch corporate reporting laws, non-legislative frameworks, and corporate practices of frontrunners.

The chapter can provide guidance to policymakers, companies and other stakeholders who want to form an opinion on how to legally support integrated reporting. It addresses important questions, especially concerning how European and domestic legislation could be adjusted in order to (i) reflect the newest insights regarding corporate transparency and (ii) become an adequate framework for companies with added benefits for financiers and investors. Moreover, it reports on the benefits of integrated reporting for reporting companies. The authors argue that integrated reporting can be a critical tool in implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the main corporate strategy of a company.

Purpose – To discover how SRI develops in the Asian context.

Methodology/approach – Extended search of SRI initiatives analyzed with Scandinavian neo-institutional approach on how ideas travel and Buddhist Economy.

Findings – Chinese SRI-initiatives imitate western peers, but the imitation results in partial isomorphism that will probably have a weak influence on Chinese companies in ESG.

Research limitations/implications – A limitation of the study is a lack of information and transparency on Chinese homepages.

Practical implications – Chinese SRI is in an early state, and will need back-up and push to become active if it will be able to influence Chinese companies.

Social implications – It is important to have a critical stance, and not trusting optimistic statements about SRI in China as a mean to integrate ESG activities in Chinese companies.

Originality/value of chapter – One of the first overviews and critical analysis of SRI in China.

Purpose – Institutional investors need to move beyond first- and second-generation interpretations of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) (based on negative filters), and also beyond third and fourth generations (based on positive and integrated filters), which are more sophisticated but still limited, and toward a fifth generation of SRI and CSR. A fifth-generation model systematically incorporates critical intangibles, such as human capital analysis, into the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment process.

Methodology – This chapter incorporates a literature review and draws on a range of qualitative research and case studies on the current and potential role of regulators to regulate nontraditional measures of value.

Findings – The power of institutional investors is currently based on incomplete information from listed companies on how they create value, yet it rests on superior knowledge and insight into the workings of the companies in which they invest, and is only as strong as the quality of the information it uses to make investment decisions on behalf of clients.

Research implications – More research on the role of human capital analysis, and its regulatory consequences, is required.

Practical implications – Regulators need to act within the context of these fifth-generation models in order to create the environment for more transparent investment recommendations.

Originality of chapter – This chapter contributes a qualitative and conceptual perspective to the debate on the role of regulation beyond the global financial crisis.

This chapter assesses the impact of socially responsible investing (SRI) in terms of its role in governance. Governance refers to the rules, incentives, institutions and philosophies for coordinating, controlling and supervising behaviour. The SRI sector purports to be a mechanism of market governance, such as through its codes of conduct and targeting of individual companies by engagement or divestment.

This subject-matter of the chapter is evaluated primarily through a conceptual and theoretical argument rather than empirical research.

Social investors’ capacity to ‘govern’ the market is constrained by gaps and deficiencies in the legal frameworks for the financial economy. Fiduciary law controlling institutional investors is the most important element of this governance framework. The SRI movement is starting to broaden its agenda and strategies to include advocacy for regulatory reform. But the SRI industry has devoted attention to its own voluntary codes of conduct, such as the UNPRI, which do not yet provide a sufficiently comprehensive or robust substitute for official regulation.

Paradoxically, whereas SRI once stood for taking action through the financial economy when governments had failed to act, the sector is also somewhat dependent on the state to provide an empowering governance framework. But state regulation itself may be strengthened by partnership with the SRI industry, such as by utilising its codes of conduct to supplement official legal standards.

The chapter deepens insights into the relationship between the SRI sector as a largely voluntary movement and its legal governance through the state or the market.

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.