The current global economy demands synergy between ecological responsiveness and proactive business models. To analyze these dynamics, the objective of this study is to simultaneously investigate the effects of green innovation practices concerning the sustainable development goals (SDG) and financial performance of firms. This study also advocates for the injection of green innovation reporting into sustainable reporting for greater disclosure. Data from sixty-seven companies from five continents and the top five blue chip firms for each country are collected through content analysis, with the generalized least squares (GLS) approach used to test a causal relationship hypothesis. The results indicate mixed findings, with green product innovation showing positive relationships with returns on equity (ROE) and returns on investments (ROI). At the same time, green process innovation shows negative relationships with returns on assets (ROA) but shows a positive impact on returns on investments (ROI) and firm SDGs. In contrast, green service innovation shows an insignificant relationship with financial performance and SDGs. On the other hand, non-operational green innovation variables and green marketing positively affect returns on assets and investment, showing significant negative impacts on returns on equity. However, green organizational innovation shows an insignificant relationship with firm financial performance and SDGs. In addition, this study also shows that the Australia/New Zealand region is the leader in green innovation reporting, followed by Europe, Asia, Africa, and lastly, North America.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs) has been established to alter our world by addressing the challenges faced by humanity in order to promote wellbeing, economic prosperity, and the protection of the environment. The SDGs provide a holistic and multi-dimensional approach to development compared to conventional development plans that focus on a limited range of dimensions. As a result, linkages between the SDGs may result in differing outcomes. This research is the first to investigate the direct relationship of environmental and social SDGs with firms’ financial performance and the moderating role of green innovation. Data from 67 companies from five continents (Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, North America, and Africa) and their top five blue-chip firms were collected through content analysis. Generalized least squares (GLS) were used to test for direct relationships. The results showed a positive correlation between environmental SDGs and the negative significance of social SDGs on firms’ financial performance. However, mixed findings regarding the moderation variable green innovation over SDGs and firms’ financial performance were found. The new findings extend the SDG literature and provide empirical evidence to practitioners and policymakers.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight the most pressing issues that need to be resolved by the global community, including the Islamic banking industry, to ensure social equity, economic viability, and environmental protection. Accordingly, this study aims to develop a practical framework for evaluating the sustainability reporting performance of Islamic banks in the purview of the SDGs. This study employed the most recent Global Reporting Initiative and religious sustainability indicators to establish the measurement framework for evaluating sustainability reporting in relation to the SDGs. Centering on the Malaysian Islamic banks, this study found that overall performance on corporate sustainability reporting is quite low, though it has increased over time from 2011–2020. The bank-wise analysis implies that the SDGs reporting differs for Islamic banks, where most of the banks outperform on SDGs disclosure scores. Further, the SDG-wise analysis indicates that SDG-9, SDG-17, SDG-11, and SDG-1 appear to have the highest disclosure scores. Nevertheless, SDG-16 revealed the least SDG disclosure score, indicating that the sampled Islamic banks do not provide complete information about addressing sustainability-related issues. The outcome of the study might be useful to the regulators and managers of Islamic banks in embedding sustainability into their strategy for reporting on SDGs. This will help in recognizing the strong and weak points of their sustainability reporting procedures regarding the SDGs.

The introduction of sustainable development goals has made sustainability a top priority for most nations. This has raised the investment into the educational system for potential growth and for creating an innovation culture in any country; the role of institutional investors in the development of financing clean energy infrastructure, entrepreneurial development, poverty reduction, and driving corporate social responsibility and firm development has been found significant. An intensive literature search of Scopus and the web of science database was explored with different relevant sets of keywords “Institutional investors AND Education”, “Institutional investors” AND “Higher education”, which drew 29 final articles between 2010–2021. This scoping review draws a new open approach for creating alternative sustainable funding for the higher education system and investment opportunities for institutional investors with government intervention. This research becomes the first that shows the road map to the higher education system in creating alternative funding through the proposed Institutional Investor & Sustainable University Funding Governance Code, which will make the higher education system independent and ease the burden on the government, as well as create a huge market opportunity for both players. This research model will scope the collaborative approach towards sustainable development goal 4—Quality education.

Purpose: This study aims to empirically evaluate the performance of commercial banks operating in India.Design/methodology/approach: The efficiency of the commercial banks is evaluated using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. We measure the technical, pure technical and scale efficiency of the sampled conventional banks using the input-oriented model. We employed an extended DEA window analysis approach based on a panel sample of 47 banks in the Indian scenario. The period of study is from 2009 to 2018.Findings: The results obtained from CRS and VRS measures envisage that Indian banks have failed to manage their inputs efficiently and convert them into outputs. It implies that Indian banks do not operate at an optimum level. Moreover, the results show that public banks exhibit superior efficiency scores followed by private and foreign banks. Apart from the aggregate sector level, we also investigate the performance of Indian banks at the individual level for in-depth analysis. The individual bank-level analysis reports that the public sector banks (PSBs) are the most efficient followed by foreign banks, whereas, the least efficient are the private banks.Research limitations/implications: The findings of our study have implications for government, financial institutions and policymakers to access the verve and flexibility of the Indian banking system. The government should consider restructuring inefficient banks to enhance overall performance. This can be considered by improvement in managerial efficiency, efficient allocation of scarce resources and appropriate scale of operation. However, the findings of the study should be interpreted in light of the period of study for the banks being operational (as we filter out banks that ceased to exist) in India and empirical methods employed. The results may vary if alternative measures are used.Originality/value: The present paper investigates the efficiency of the Indian banking sector employing the Data Envelopment Window Analysis (DEWA) technique. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is perhaps the first one to employ the DEWA measure on the Indian banking industry to gauge their performance over time.