IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ssi/jouesi/v8y2021i4p349-362.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Baltic investors care about environmental, social and governance (ESG)?

Author

Listed:
  • Ilze Zumente

    (Riga Technical University, Latvia)

  • Jūlija Bistrova

    (Riga Technical University, Latvia)

Abstract

As the environmental, social and governance (ESG) adoption practices in large and developed economies are becoming more sophisticated, in the still developing economies the non-financial information disclosure practices are gradually evolving. This article aims to capture the ESG implementation practices and challenges of the financial investors and banks operating in the Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. By analyzing survey data of 37 financial market players, the results reveal that around 81% of the respondents already use ESG data when evaluating their investments, which can partly be explained by the regulatory drivers coming from the large share of private equity and venture funds managing local and international public funding. Moreover, a substantial average weight of 0.39 is found to be attributed to the sustainability factors in the investment evaluation process, which is rather high given the general perception of the ESG being a recent addition to the investment evaluation tools. While 51% of the respondents admitted that Covid-19 pandemic has made no changes in their ESG practices, there are other common challenges named by the investors e.g. lack of general and quantifiable ESG data from the side of the companies and struggles to find matching benchmarks for the large share of the small and mid-sized companies dominating the Baltic investment market. By addressing the obstacles highlighted by this research, the policy makers can explore the ways how to foster a wider adoption of ESG policies in the Baltic investment universe.

Suggested Citation

  • Ilze Zumente & Jūlija Bistrova, 2021. "Do Baltic investors care about environmental, social and governance (ESG)?," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 8(4), pages 349-362, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssi:jouesi:v:8:y:2021:i:4:p:349-362
    DOI: 10.9770/jesi.2021.8.4(20)
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://jssidoi.org/jesi/uploads/articles/32/Zumente_Do_Baltic_investors_care_about_environmental_social_and_governance_ESG.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/826
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.9770/jesi.2021.8.4(20)?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emiel Duuren & Auke Plantinga & Bert Scholtens, 2016. "ESG Integration and the Investment Management Process: Fundamental Investing Reinvented," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 525-533, October.
    2. Broadstock, David C. & Chan, Kalok & Cheng, Louis T.W. & Wang, Xiaowei, 2021. "The role of ESG performance during times of financial crisis: Evidence from COVID-19 in China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    3. Aaron K. Chatterji & Rodolphe Durand & David I. Levine & Samuel Touboul, 2016. "Do ratings of firms converge? Implications for managers, investors and strategy researchers," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(8), pages 1597-1614, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Khaled Khalaf Alafi, 2023. "The Impact of ESG on Strategic Success in Jordanian Islamic Banks," International Review of Management and Marketing, Econjournals, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, January.
    2. Ilze Zumente & Nataļja Lāce, 2021. "ESG Rating—Necessity for the Investor or the Company?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-14, August.
    3. Riccardo Savio & Edoardo D’Andrassi & Francesca Ventimiglia, 2023. "A Systematic Literature Review on ESG during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-17, January.
    4. Muhammad Jawad & Munazza Naz & Sohail Rizwan, 2023. "Leadership support, innovative work behavior, employee work engagement, and corporate reputation: Examining the effect of female in not government organizations," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 708-719, March.
    5. Obey Dzomonda, 2022. "Environmental Sustainability Commitment and Access to Finance by Small and Medium Enterprises: The Role of Financial Performance and Corporate Governance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-20, July.
    6. Mehmed Ganic, 2022. "Does Institutional Quality Matter for the IDP Hypothesis? Evidence from Emerging Europe," Croatian Economic Survey, The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, vol. 24(1), pages 83-113, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Louis Maximilian Ronalter & Merce Bernardo & Javier Manuel Romaní, 2023. "Quality and environmental management systems as business tools to enhance ESG performance: a cross-regional empirical study," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(9), pages 9067-9109, September.
    2. Clementino, Ester & Perkins, Richard, 2020. "How do companies respond to environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings? Evidence from Italy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103046, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Zou, Jin & Yan, Jingzhou & Deng, Guoying, 2023. "ESG rating confusion and bond spreads," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    4. Alberto Barroso del Toro & Laura Vivas Crisol & Xavier Tort-Martorell, 2022. "Comparing the Impacts of Sustainability Narratives on American and European Energy Shareholders: A Multi-Event Study Analysing Reactions to News before and during COVID-19," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-18, November.
    5. Francesco Cesarone & Lorenzo Lampariello & Davide Merolla & Jacopo Maria Ricci & Simone Sagratella & Valerio Giuseppe Sasso, 2023. "A bilevel approach to ESG multi-portfolio selection," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, December.
    6. Ehsan Poursoleyman & Gholamreza Mansourfar & Mohammad Kabir Hassan & Saeid Homayoun, 2024. "Did Corporate Social Responsibility Vaccinate Corporations Against COVID-19?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 525-551, January.
    7. Deli Wang & Ke Peng & Kaiye Tang & Yewei Wu, 2022. "Does Fintech Development Enhance Corporate ESG Performance? Evidence from an Emerging Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-21, December.
    8. Christoph Kayser & Henning Zülch, 2024. "Understanding the Relevance of Sustainability in Mergers and Acquisitions—A Systematic Literature Review on Sustainability and Its Implications throughout Deal Stages," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(2), pages 1-44, January.
    9. Gallucci, Carmen & Santulli, Rosalia & Lagasio, Valentina, 2022. "The conceptualization of environmental, social and governance risks in portfolio studies A systematic literature review," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    10. Tobias Bauckloh & Stefan Schaltegger & Sebastian Utz & Sebastian Zeile & Bernhard Zwergel, 2023. "Active First Movers vs. Late Free-Riders? An Empirical Analysis of UN PRI Signatories’ Commitment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 747-781, January.
    11. Ester Clementino & Richard Perkins, 2021. "How Do Companies Respond to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings? Evidence from Italy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(2), pages 379-397, June.
    12. Dumrose, Maurice & Rink, Sebastian & Eckert, Julia, 2022. "Disaggregating confusion? The EU Taxonomy and its relation to ESG rating," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    13. Basse, Tobias & Karmani, Majdi & Rjiba, Hatem & Wegener, Christoph, 2023. "Does adhering to the principles of green finance matter for stock valuation? Evidence from testing for (co-)explosiveness," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    14. Vincenzo Pacelli & Francesca Pampurini & Anna Grazia Quaranta, 2023. "Environmental, Social and Governance investing: Does rating matter?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 30-41, January.
    15. So Ra Park & Jae Young Jang, 2021. "The Impact of ESG Management on Investment Decision: Institutional Investors’ Perceptions of Country-Specific ESG Criteria," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-27, September.
    16. Felipe Arias Fogliano de Souza Cunha & Erick Meira & Renato J. Orsato, 2021. "Sustainable finance and investment: Review and research agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(8), pages 3821-3838, December.
    17. Davide Lauria & W. Brent Lindquist & Stefan Mittnik & Svetlozar T. Rachev, 2022. "ESG-Valued Portfolio Optimization and Dynamic Asset Pricing," Papers 2206.02854, arXiv.org.
    18. Olivier Boiral & David Talbot & Marie‐Christine Brotherton, 2020. "Measuring sustainability risks: A rational myth?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2557-2571, September.
    19. Li, Xuepeng & Xu, Fengmin & Jing, Kui, 2022. "Robust enhanced indexation with ESG: An empirical study in the Chinese Stock Market," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    20. Zengfu Li & Liuhua Feng & Zheng Pan & Hafiz M. Sohail, 2022. "ESG performance and stock prices: evidence from the COVID-19 outbreak in China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental; Social and Governance (ESG); financial investors; sustainability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ssi:jouesi:v:8:y:2021:i:4:p:349-362. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Manuela Tvaronaviciene (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.