We are in an increasingly disruptive context, in an Era in which the world presents challenging and growing levels of uncertainty, unpredictability, and complexity. As a result, society is facing, at all levels and in all areas, more and more global challenges, challenging its stability and prosperity, whether at a technological, economic, social, environmental, or educational level. The new Era, Era 5.0, which places the human being at the center of innovation and technological transformation, can and must make its contribution to improving the quality of life, solving social problems, and human well-being, with the support of technology. Thus, this work intends, based on a systematic review of the literature, to analyze the challenges of Era 5.0 and its impacts on industry, society, and education as engines and promoters of the path to sustainable development. The results of this work show that the challenges for industry and education on the road to a “new” society are immense, in order to achieve a more humanistic society, centered on human beings, quality of life, and sustainability. We believe in contributing to the state of the art in Era 5.0 and providing an analytical reflection in the field of education and industry, on the path towards a society that places the human being at the center of innovation and technological transformation.

Intellectual capital (IC) has become one of the most valuable resources of an organisation. Along with the increasing concerns for sustainable practices, a new concept has emerged: Sustainable IC (SIC). However, research on SIC is scarce, especially when addressing its relationship with sustainable organisational performance. Through a case study conducted on a small- and medium-size industrial orthopaedic footwear organisation, we aimed to assess how an organisation’s internal stakeholders perceive the concepts of SIC, sustainability, and sustainable performance and to comprehend better the effect of SIC on the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable organisational performance. Evidence suggests that the stakeholders were not familiar with the SIC concept and overemphasised the environmental dimension when referring to both sustainability and sustainable performance concepts. Furthermore, it was found that the organisation’s sustainable performance was affected by all its SIC components (human, structural, and relational). This study contributes to the development of two different but complementing areas of research: IC and sustainability. It also provides important managerial implications for industrial organisations concerned with their performance. Finally, generalisation for other situations should only be conducted in a theoretical fashion.

The objective of this study is to present an overview of sustainability reporting in the financial industry between 2016 and 2024, carrying out a systematic review of the literature on the topic in the banking sector. The theoretical framework addresses the integration of sustainability from the perspectives of stakeholders, agency and legitimacy theories, highlighting the interrelationship between financial practices and social responsibility. The research used quantitative and qualitative methods, focusing on a systematic review of the literature, analyzing databases such as Scopus and Web of Science in 116 articles. The results showed an annual publication growth rate of 29.68%, with an emphasis on environmental and social sustainability practices. The dissemination of knowledge about sustainability in the banking sector remains low. The central themes included sustainability disclosure, circular economy and FinTechs. Limitations in regulations and the lack of adequate regulations in developing countries, especially in Latin America and Africa, make it difficult to effectively implement these practices, highlighting the need for greater supervision and awareness. This study highlights that the sustainability disclosure in the banking context is a topic that still lacks sufficient exploration.

Europe has just published a new Directive on Corporate Sustainability Reporting disclosure and is elaborating new European Sustainability Reporting Standards. To analyze whether companies are complying with the new disclosure requirements before the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CRSD) on sustainability comes into force, a content analysis was carried out on the corporate reports of 12 companies in the Portuguese Stock Index of Euronext Lisbon for the year 2022, complemented by the score analysis technique. From the study of general disclosures (European Sustainability Reporting Standards—ESRS 2), we concluded that although some companies already comply with various requirements of this standard, they are not disclosing all the information required by ESRS 2 on sustainability. We also concluded, by analyzing the companies’ reports for 2022, that the requirements of the CSRD have different levels of disclosure.