A bibliometric analysis of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) research and its trends and hotspots.

A branch that is leading out of sustainable development is Environmental, Social Governance (ESG) which aims to bind human existence and nature to act for each other and not against. ESG revolves around the concept of sustainable development that integrates environmental protection, social justice and economic development. ESG has become a vital factor in promoting green finance and is a wide concern to society. ESG also has become a competitive strategy in influencing decision-making in leading a company to have a good reputation. 

Understanding ESG

Since, ESG is such a broad concept it is hard to give it a definition as it comprises three dimensions. It is developed from corporate social responsibility, ethical and responsible investment which has become a core framework for sustainable development. ESG goes back all the way when the public began to concern about environmental deterioration and this is when investors started considering environmental factors in their investments. The ESG concept was put forward when “Who Cares Wins", published by the United Nations Global Compact in 2004, first integrated the dimensions of ESG and put forward the ESG concept (UN, 2004). It is known that ESG involves several concepts. Further, certain companies issue ESG reports according to regulatory frameworks. ESG performance and ESG ratings go hand-in-hand. ESG investments also depend on ESG ratings.

The bibliometrics analysis on ESG

A few professionals have added in bibliometric analysis and meta analysis to assess ESG performance.” “Khan (2022) employed bibliometric analysis and meta-analysis to study literature on ESG performance and its impact on performance. Senadheera et al. (2022) used quantitative bibliometric analysis to discover present and future research directions of ESG. Galletta et al. (2022) conducted bibliometric analysis on banking industry. Gao et al. (2021) reviewed the ESG field using 690 articles from the Scopus database and extended the literatureJournal Pre-proof significantly. Li et al. (2021) studied the cooperation status of ESG research using the analysis tool CiteSpace to analyze ESG literature in top international journals.”

The study by Guochao Wan a b, Ahmad Yahya Dawod a, Somsak Chanaim a, Siva Shankar Ramasamy has four contributions. These contributions namely are:

1. First, we describe the evolution process of ESG research and propose an analysis of highly cited publications, citation structure, authors, journals, universities, and countries.”

2. “Second, we highlight the understanding of highly cited publications and research hotspot issues in this field, such as the philosophy of the ESG system, factors affecting ESG, the financial outcomes of ESG, the association between ESG and CSR, and ESG investing.”

3. “Third, relevant papers are analyzed to trace the transfer of research directions and look for future research opportunities.”

4. “Fourth, we present a bibliometric analysis that provides useful and valuable information for future ESG studies.”

ESG and financial performance

ESG is for enterprises to understand their risks. In order to bring out excellence and performance a company has to be socially responsible. There is proof that “the better the ESG performance, the lower the company’s risk (Albuquerque et al., 2019). Enterprises with higher ESG performance were more flexible and, during the 2008 financial crisis, enterprises with higher ESG levels performed better, indicating that ESG performance can improve the anti-risk ability of enterprises.” It is pronounced that “ESG can reduce a company’s specific legal risks and lead to a higher market valuation.” The objective of the study is, “taking these factors into account, we use 755 articles from the Web of Science Collection database and employ VOSviewer and CiteSpace to perform a bibliometric and visual analysis of the ESG topic to address gaps in the analysis. 

The way forward for ESG

The results show that ESG is gaining traction from researchers. Further, ESG investing ties with ESG practices. The article mentions that ESG is now known as a sustainability framework. Further, the top journals with the largest number of papers around ESG were Business Strategy and the Environment. The article leaves the message that “scholars should keep up with ESG research trends and explore research fields related to ESG to provide a solid theoretical basis for governments to promote the construction of an ESG information disclosure system and the improvement of ESG rating system standards, contributing toward achieving the goal of sustainable development.Journal Pre-proof.”