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Sustainable Finance: New Trends, Environment and Social Changes

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Social Ecology and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2022) | Viewed by 19053

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Zied Ftiti

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Guest Editor

1. OCRE Laboratory, EDC Paris Business School, 92415 Paris, France
2. ISG de Tunis-LR-GEF2A Laboratory, Tunis Institute, University of Tunis, Boulevard du 9 Avril 1938, Tunis, Tunisia
Interests: financial econometrics; financial economics; macroeconomics; energy economics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Younes Ben Zaied

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Guest Editor

OCRE Laboratory, EDC Paris Business School, Paris 92415, France
Interests: finance and CSR; sustainable development; innovation; environmental resource management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The term "finance" often refers to the optimization of shareholder value and the maximization of profitability and return on investment. It is habitually synonymous with the pursuit of economic growth and development, at times at the cost of increasingly scarce natural resources. However, in the wake of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges of the 21th century this version of finance, is seriously contested. Now, corporations and institutions, NGO's and governments need to assume responsibility for the impact of their activities on their stakeholders. In response to these challenges, business leaders, policy makers, activists and academics suggest the need to integrate financial activity into the broader economic activity (Paranque, 2017; Paranque and Pérez, 2016) and then to anchor it into social activity (Polanyi, 1983; Fischbach, 2015b). Lagoarde-Segot and Paranque (2018) consider that this integration implies reaffirming the primacy of social objectives over economic and financial objectives, which are the only means to achieve them.

This has led to the development of "Sustainable Finance" and the emergence of a number of new challenges related to environment and society, particularly in the time of COVID-19.

Climate risks: modelling and assessment;
Climate change and environmental degradation;
Economic, social and governance effects of climate uncertainty;
Financing innovations for sustainability;
Green and responsible investment opportunities;
Latest developments in financial inclusion;
Large project financing for achieving Sustainable Development Goals;
Trends and challenges in SME finance;
Sustainable finance;
Sustainable resources management;
The emergence of Fintechs and the reshaping of financial services industry.

Prof. Dr. Zied Ftiti
Dr. Younes Ben Zaied
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.

Keywords

financial inclusion
climate change
COVID-19
Fintech, sustainable
finance
sustainable development goals
green finance

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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26 pages, 521 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Gender Diversity and Firms’ Sustainable Performance: Moderating Role of CEO Duality in Emerging Equity Market

by Chengpeng Zhu, Muhammad Husnain, Saif Ullah, Muhammad Tasnim Khan and Waris Ali

Sustainability 2022, 14(12), 7177; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14127177 - 11 Jun 2022

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3534

Abstract

The objective of the study is to investigate the impact of female representation on boards and female CEOs on firms’ sustainable performance in the context of an emerging economy. We also introduce the CEO duality as a moderator variable between sustainable firm performance and board gender diversity. For this purpose, the study uses a panel data sample from 2005 to 2020 for non-financial listed firms in Pakistan. We use the firm’s operational self-sufficiency for the sustainable performance of firms. For robustness, the study also uses other accounting-based and market-based proxies. We apply the static (fixed and random effect) and dynamic panel estimation (GMM) techniques to deal with the heterogeneity and dynamic endogeneity issues in panel data estimation. The finding shows a significant positive impact of female directors on board and female CEOs on sustainable performance, whereas CEO duality does not moderate this relationship. Furthermore, we find that CEO duality has a significant negative impact on firms’ sustainable performance, which supports the agency theory hypothesis. The study also controls corporate board level factors, including board size and board independence, and uses leverage, firm size, capital expenditure, and tangible assets as firm-level control. The results also reveal that board size and board independence have a significant positive impact on firms’ sustainable performance. Furthermore, firm size, tangibility, and firm age have a significant positive, whereas leverage and capital expenditure have a negative impact on firms’ sustainable performance. Finally, the study has policy implications for stakeholders. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Finance: New Trends, Environment and Social Changes)

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14 pages, 292 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impact of Board Gender Diversity on Corporate Social Responsibility and Irresponsibility: Empirical Evidence from France

by Sonia Boukattaya and Abdelwahed Omri

Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 4712; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13094712 - 22 Apr 2021

Cited by 34 | Viewed by 5503

Abstract

While prior studies have investigated the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment, researchers have scantly studied the potentially important relationship between board gender diversity and corporate social responsibility and irresponsibilityseparately. Drawing on the social role theory and feminist ethics, we hypothesizethat board gender diversity is positively associated with CSR and negatively associated with corporate social irresponsibility (CSI).Here, we relied on a sample of French non-financial companies listed on the SBF 120 index between 2011 and 2016. Our results provide evidence on the positive impact of board gender diversity on CSR and the negative one on CSI. We show that women have a stronger impact on reducing CSI than on enhancing CSR. Our findings were robust to the different estimation methods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Finance: New Trends, Environment and Social Changes)

17 pages, 3687 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainability through Operational Excellence: An Emerging Country Perspective

by Rafael Henríquez-Machado, Andrés Muñoz-Villamizar and Javier Santos

Sustainability 2021, 13(6), 3165; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13063165 - 13 Mar 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4253

Abstract

Operational excellence is directly related to improving performance and efficiency in every dimension of sustainability (i.e., economic, environmental and social). Consequently, companies are implementing this initiative to remain competitive in their industries. Previous works measured operational excellence in first-world companies. However, it is expected that the productivity level in many companies from developing or emerging countries is far below the average level of developed companies. In this context, the research objectives of this study are to (1) evaluate the level of implementation of operational excellence, impacting the three dimensions of sustainability simultaneously in some companies from the central-savanna region of Colombia; (2) compare their implementation status with similar studies carried out in companies of developed countries. In order to solve it, we first present an empirical assessment of operational excellence in that region using semistructured interviews in 79 different companies. Then, we compare the obtained results with the assessments available in the literature. Our results show that operational excellence performance in Colombian companies is lower than in developed companies in terms of economic performance by operations standards and continuous improvement schemes, environmental sustainability and social sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Finance: New Trends, Environment and Social Changes)

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Review

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23 pages, 7892 KiB

Open AccessReview

Global Evolution of Research on Sustainable Finance from 2000 to 2021: A Bibliometric Analysis on WoS Database

by Wenbing Luo, Ziyan Tian, Shihu Zhong, Qinke Lyu and Mingjun Deng

Sustainability 2022, 14(15), 9435; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159435 - 01 Aug 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3751

Abstract

The expanding international influence of sustainable finance has made it one of the most cutting-edge development trends in the financial field. Learning about the global evolution of research on sustainable finance can improve the understanding and evaluation of sustainable finance by scholars and practitioners. Based on the ISI Web of Science database, this paper used bibliometric methods to analyze 3786 articles related to sustainable finance published between 2000 and 2021, mastering their discipline co-occurrence, publication characteristics, partnership, influence, keyword co-occurrence, co-citations, and structural variation. The highlights of the results: socially responsible investment, climate change, corporate social responsibility, green finance, carbon credits, and renewable energy were the hotspots between 2000 and 2021; responsible investment, green bond, low-carbon transition, vulnerable countries, low-carbon investment, business model, financial development, supply chain, conventional investment dilemma, sustainable financing, environmental investment, and green credit policy were the hot research topics between 2016 and 2021; papers related to socially responsible investment were an important knowledge base for sustainable financial research between 2000 and 2021; the research topics of the articles with the strongest transformative potentials between 2016 and 2021 mainly involved green bonds, socially responsible mutual funds, ESG investors’ preferences, and the impact of COVID-19. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Finance: New Trends, Environment and Social Changes)

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