Project info
Work package
- Work
Sustainability threat
- Feedback Cycles
Challenge
- Reconciling stakeholder interests
Study info
Description of Study
Offering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) assessment and certification can invite organizations to adapt their activities to accommodate environmental, social, and governance concerns. Prior research points to shortcomings in accurately monitoring and assessing organizational sustainability performance. This contribution aims to highlight the role of ESG indicators as motivating organizations to prioritize sustainability goals. Theory and research elucidate that the definition of specific goals guides the degree of effort organizations invest, the priorities they set, and the persistence they display in pursuing targeted outcomes. The extent to which performance assessments of rating agencies specify and integrate ESG concerns thus impacts the likelihood that organizations will address each of these sustainability targets. The likely impact of ESG indicators was examined by consulting ratings, rankings, and indexes from 130 rating agencies included in the Reporting Exchange Platform. We identified and categorized 237 unique indicators in over 600 corporate ESG indicators. Results reveal that themes covered are less well specified in the governance domain than in the environmental and social domain. Further, different dimensions are emphasized depending on which stakeholder is addressed (investors, consumers, companies). Taken together, we conclude that this makes it more difficult for organizations to adopt a holistic approach to the achievement of sustainability goals.
Study research question
Our research questions examine the balance and consistency of indicators used as externally imposed organizational performance targets. We address the following issues: First, we examine whether indicators address environmental, social as well as governance aspects of organizational performance. Second, we compare the abstractness versus concreteness of these three types of indicators and the underlying themes they represent. Third, we explore whether the issues and indicators that are highlighted offer a unified view of which goals are important or depend on the stakeholder group targeted by the ESG indicators.
Collection provenance
- External data
Collection methods
- Archival
Personal data
No
External Source
Source description
Ratings, Rankings, and Indexes online database
File formats
- .xlsx
Data types
- Structured
Languages
- English
Coverage start
Coverage end
01/07/2020
30/09/2020
Spatial coverage
Global coverage (mostly Europe/US)
Collection period start
01/07/2020
Collection period end
30/09/2020
Variables
Unit
Unit description
Sample size
Sampling method
Other
ESG indicators (ratings, rankings, and indexes)
237
Overlapping entries were excluded
Hypothesis
Theory
Explorative study on the nature and focus of ESG ratings and benchmarks
—
Variable type
Variable name
Variable description
Other
Indicator Type
Whether the indicator is an index, rating or ranking
Other
Indicator Subject
Whether the indicator covers the environmental, social and/or governance domain
Other
Indicator Target Audience
Whether the indicator is targeting investors, consumers or companies
Discipline-specific operationalizations
Conflict of interest
No
Data packages
Publications
ESG Indicators as Organizational Performance Goals: Do Rating Agencies Encourage a Holistic Approach?
Veenstra, E. M., & Ellemers, N. (2020). ESG indicators as organizational performance goals: Do rating agencies encourage a holistic approach? Sustainability, 12(24).
Documents
Filename
Description
Date
Ethics
Ethical assessment
No
Ethical committee