The world has great expectations for how the private sector, both companies and investors, can support the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In fact, it is generally believed that these goals cannot be achieved without strong support from the private sector. But will making the world a better place hurt financial returns? The answer is “No” if companies focus on the SDGs and their associated targets that benefit from strong performance on the material environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that matter to investors. In this paper we map the 30 generic ESG issues identified by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) to the SDGs and their targets. We show that some SASB issues are more material for a given SDG than others. We also show that some SASB issues are more important to the SDGs in general than others. We also map the material ESG issues for each of SASB’s 79 industries to the SDGs and to their targets. For each sector, there are particular SDGs where it has high impact and for each SDG there are particular sectors that have a high impact on it, and some sectors are more important to the SDGs in aggregate than others. The same is true at the target level. This mapping can be used as a guide for both companies and investors who want to understand how value-creating ESG performance can contribute to the SDGs. This paper is divided into four parts. Part I explains the motivation for this study. Part II explains our methodology and Part III the results. Part IV concludes with a summary of our results and some reflections on how our mapping methodology can be improved.

This paper investigates the role of the intensity and relevance of ESG materiality in equity returns. Adopting the classifications of materiality provided by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), the paper introduces the concept of the financial relevance and financial intensity of ESG materiality in order to estimate how it explains equity returns. The results of the analysis, based on a large sample of U.S. companies included in the Russell 3000 from January 2008 to July 2019 show that not only do ESG rating changes (ESG momentum) have a consistent impact on equity performance, but also that the market seems to reward more those companies operating in industries with a high level of concentration of ESG materiality. The implication is that the equity premium of listed companies is better explained by the concentration of material issues (i.e. the Gini index) than by the ESG momentum.

In recent years, the global financial and economic crisis are rewriting the relationship between business and society, focusing, among other things, on the role of the process of financialization, not only in the economy as a whole but also within non-financial companies. Shareholder value maximization, together with the commoditization of business, has led to a general short-term approach at the expense of capital accumulation and core business activity, to the detriment of not only firms’ competitiveness and productivity but also of human capital, strategic innovation, business ethics, and long-term growth. Within this framework, this study investigates the role of corporate sustainability, analyzing the nexus between financialization, accumulation of real capital, and corporate social performance, an issue that has been neglected so far. Using a sample of US manufacturing firms from 2002 to 2017, we found that, while financialization was negatively correlated with corporate real investment, the environmental and social firm performance positively impacted corporate capital accumulation. Our results support the belief that a focus on environmental, social, and governance standards, fostering real investments, may enhance a firm’s long-term growth with a positive effect on its long-term value.

This Forum aims to systematically describe and analyse the evolution of national financial systems within the EU over the past three decades. It analyses the processes of financialisation that have dominated this period as well as the causes and consequences of the financial crisis from the perspectives of five individual member states — Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain. Furthermore, policy proposals which could change the role of the financial system to better serve economic and social objectives are also put forward.

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have created a framework for environmental and social impacts, which many large institutional investors and an increasing number of corporations are using to guide their resource allocation decisions or highlight those already in place. In this paper, we argue that the SDGs have clarified certain elements that have been predominantly missing (or implicit) in many ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) standards and metrics, specifically focusing on the environmental and social externalities (social costs) created by companies. Using a methodological framework that maps the SDGs and their targets to the 30 generic issues developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standard Board (SASB), this paper focuses on health care as a case to evaluate the contribution of companies in this sector to the SDGs for which their material issues, as defined by SASB, are relevant. Issues not considered material by SASB are also evaluated. In doing so, we highlight where private sector firms can be (and have been) contributing to SDG impacts. Where that is either not occurring or perhaps not possible, the paper points to the need for public sector activities.