Corporate sustainability performance becomes the central element in many current business developments: the total value of ESG investment grows, more and more clients want to invest in projects that deliver more than the pure financial return, companies are innovating and transforming their business models, and adopting the B-Corp values. Environmental and wider societal impact becomes the central focus of the businesses that want to become the force for good. This article adopts an empirical approach and builds an ESG index of corporate performance based on eight critical metrics representing the economic, social, and environmental dimensions under varying policy priorities. Furthermore, it investigates correlations between these aggregate ESG indices and share prices as well as return on investment, or ROE, of companies. The article goes on to investigate empirically the correlation between employees/turnover, diversity, CO₂ emissions, waste generation, and water use of companies and share prices and ROE metrics, respectively. The reasons for divergence between correlations of sustainability performance indicators with share prices, ROE, and profits/turnover are discussed in detail, with particular attention drawn to the reasons why diversity might matter more for the share prices than ROE and why waste generation, water use, and CO₂ emissions might still be poorly reflected in the ROE while some of these metrics have a significant connection with the profit/turnover ratio. The article will undoubtedly be of interest to ESG fund managers, investors, corporate sustainability officers, and policymakers.

Global CO₂ concentrations continue to rise despite significant efforts to decarbonize and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This paper examines the role of sustainable business in reducing and limiting global CO₂ concentrations based on daily CO₂ data from the Mauna Loa Observatory. Based on the theory of the carbon cycle, factors considered significant in determining global CO₂ concentrations include emissions, affected by economic variables like the crude oil price and Dow Jones Sustainability Index but also absorption capacity, affected through biomass growth by astronomical variables such as total solar irradiance and cosmic rays. Considering pair-wise correlations between variables, particular attention is drawn to the fact that in the COVID-19 pandemic, when everyone was working from home, cars were not allowed on the roads, and planes were not flying, the correlation between the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the global CO₂ concentration was negative. The article tests the hypothesis that business can be a force for good and make a meaningful contribution towards reducing global CO₂ concentrations. To this end, it offers an integrated model of global CO₂ concentrations built according to the theory of the carbon cycle based on 2195 daily observations, including all the variables outlined above. The results confirm the hypothesis that business, expressed in the form of Dow Jones Sustainability Index, can play a role in reducing the global CO₂ concentrations. A range of policy conclusions is drawn.

Corporate sustainability performance becomes the central element in many current business developments: the total value of ESG investment grows, more and more clients want to invest in projects that deliver more than the pure financial return, companies are innovating and transforming their business models and adopting the B-Corp values. Environmental and wider societal impact becomes the central focus of the businesses that want to become the force for good. This article adopts an empirical approach and builds an ESG index of corporate performance based on 8 critical metrics representing the economic, social and environmental dimensions under varying policy priorities. Furthermore, it investigates correlations between these aggregate ESG indices and share prices as well as return on investment or ROE of companies. The article goes on to investigate empirically the correlation between Employees/Turnover, Diversity, CO2 emissions, Waste generation and Water use of companies and share prices and ROE metrics respectively. The reasons for divergence between correlations of Sustainability Performance Indicators with share prices, ROE and Profits/Turnover are discussed in detail with particular attention drawn to the reasons why diversity might matter more for the share prices than ROE, and why waste generation, water use and CO2 emissions might still be poorly reflected in the ROE, while some of these metrics have a significant connection with the Profit/Turnover ratio. The article will undoubtedly be of interest to ESG fund managers, investors, corporate sustainability officers and policy makers.

Global CO2 concentrations keep rising despite all the efforts to decarbonize and limit the harmful emisions of Green House Gasses. This paper examines the role of sustainable business in reducing and limiting global CO2 concentrations based on daily CO2 data from Mauna Loa Observatory. Factors considered significant in determining global CO2 concentrations include economic variables like the Crude Oil Price and Dow Jones Sustainability Index but also astronomical variables such as Total Solar Irradiance and Cosmic Rays. Particular attention is drawn to the fact that in the COVID-19 pandemic while everyone was working from home, cars were not allowed on the roads and planes were not flying, the correlation between Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the global CO2 concentration was negative, what you could expect if business is to be the force for good, while before and after the pandemic, this correlation became positive. The final integrated model of global CO2 concentrations is built based on 2195 daily observations including all the variables outlined above. A range of policy conclusions is drawn.