Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: ESG Ratings and Disclosures

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental, Social and Governance—or ESG—issues have become key drivers of both investment management and business strategy. Global ESG assets are now over $30 trillion (€28 trillion), which represents about 25% of invested assets, and are projected to grow by another 40% by 2030. ESG assets, quite clearly, are an incredibly important part of the global economy and investment world. As such, an entire sub-industry of privately created and sponsored ESG ratings has developed, keen to provide objective measures of how well companies and countries perform across various E, S and G performance standards.

In this Special Issue, ESG Ratings and Disclosures, we seek research that analyzes these ratings. Specifically, we seek research which explores the following questions: How transparent are ESG ratings? Does transparency matter? How are ESG ratings constructed? Which factors are included? Which factors are excluded? How do we decide which E, S and G factors to include and which to exclude? How are the weightings of individual factors determined? How are the weightings of the E, the S and the G pillars determined? How are ESG ratings used by investment managers? How are they used—or manipulated—by corporate managers? Is greenwashing more or less of a problem through ESG ratings? How close are we to a global standard ESG rating, as we have with IFRS for financial reporting? What is the connection between ESG and economic value creation? Where is the ESG investment industry headed over the next 5–10 years? What do we expect the evolution of ESG Ratings to be over the next 5–10 years? What are the principal benefits that ESG ratings have offered in the past 1–2 decades? What are the principal concerns that ESG ratings have created in the past 1–2 decades? All of these questions are of interest for this Special Issue.

While these questions point to a variety of potential topics, they are certainly not comprehensive. We look forward to seeing your work on ESG Ratings and Disclosures, and welcome research from a variety of perspectives: at the firm-level, industry-level, and at the country-level. Any research that advances our understanding of the role that ESG ratings play in today's investment, business and research worlds is welcome. Furthermore, research that contributes to how we think about ESG ratings or to future research in this area will also be welcome. 

Prof. Dr. Brian Bolton
Dr. Panagiotis Dimitropoulos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• ESG ratings
• transparency
• investment management
• governance ratings
• environmental performance
• corporate social responsibility
• sustainable development
• sustainable business
• business and society