ESG, Sustainability and Competitiveness: A Serious Reflection

Dear Colleagues,

In the new competitive context, a holistic approach to sustainability (and, in particular, to environmental, social and governance criteria) can help to identify investment opportunities.

During the last few years, ESG has become a fundamental approach to pursuing a sustainable competitive advantage and, today, ESG is an important framework that helps external investors assess company performance and risk. Sustainability, on the other hand, is a framework that assists firms in making internal capital investments.

A number of scholars (Kivimaa, 2008; Khan, 2019) have highlighted the importance of ethical practices in the new competitive framework. As affirmed by Chouaibi et al. (2022), “Corporate environmental responsibilities have become an international trend. Moreover, environmental strategies have increasingly become a part of business practice and research”.

In recent decades, the literature on corporate value and corporate performance has been growing and, due to the multidisciplinary nature of the subject, new aspects pertaining to sustainability are increasingly being added (Battisti et al., 2019; Buallay et al., 2020).

On the one hand, ESG factors aid companies in fulfilling their strategic environmental objectives, gaining competitive advantage and attracting future prospective investors (Mardini 2022). On the other hand, Friedman (1970) argued that the implementation of corporate social responsibilities, and ensuring they perform as advertised, requires additional costs—in particular for shareholders—which may lead to improper assignment of a firm’s resources as well as to limiting the financial benefits of this approach.

Building from these statements, this Special Issue seeks to investigate the impact of sustainability factors—ESG in particular—on business models and the financial performance of firms. More specifically, this Special Issue aims to explore whether ESG factors have a positive or negative impact on competitive advantage and on a firm’s economic performance.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome and research areas may include, but not limited to:

• ESG and competitiveness;
• ESG and its impact on financial performance;
• Sustainability and new business models;
• The role of ESG in the new business context;
• Sustainability, myth or truth?;
• From CSR to ESG—new ways to sustain a business.

References

Battisti, E., Miglietta, N., Nirino, N. and Diaz, M.V. (2019), “Value creation, innovation practice, and competitive advantage”, European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 273-290.

Buallay, A., Kukreja, G., Aldhaen, E., Al Mubarak, M. and Hamdan, A.M. (2020), “Corporate social responsibility disclosure and firms’ performance in Mediterranean countries: a stakeholders’ perspective”, EuroMed Journal of Business, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 361-375.

Chouaibi, S.; Rossi, M.; Siggia, D.; Chouaibi, J. Exploring the Moderating Role of Social and Ethical Practices in the Relationship between Environmental Disclosure and Financial Performance: Evidence from ESG Companies. Sustainability 2022, 14, 209. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/su14010209.

Friedman, M. (1970), ‘The social responsibility of firms is to increase its profits’, New York Times, pp.122–126.

Khan, M. (2019), “Corporate governance, ESG, and stock returns around the world”, Financial Analysts Journal, Vol. 75 No. 4, pp. 103-123.

Kivimaa, P. (2008), “Integrating environment for innovation: experiences from product development in paper and packaging”, Organization and Environment, Vol. 21, pp. 56-77.

Mardini, G.H. (2022) ‘ESG factors and corporate financial performance’, Int. J. Managerial and Financial Accounting, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.247–264.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Matteo Rossi
Dr. Ashutosh Kolte
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• ESG
• sustainability
• competitiveness
• financial performance
• business models
• CSR