Concerns about the sustainability of contemporary capitalism have inspired a search for organizational forms that are more concerned with solving environmental and social problems. We examine whether one such model – foundation ownership – where a non-profit foundation owns and controls business companies, is associated with better sustainability outcomes. We hypothesize that foundations prioritize environmental and social objectives over profit maximization, resulting in stronger ESG performance in the companies they own. Using data on listed foundation-owned companies over the period 2003–2020 matched with control groups by firm size and industry, we find that foundation-owned firms have higher environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, particularly in the environmental and social dimensions. They maintained ESG activities during the financial crisis and committed to more significant emission reductions in the post-Paris Agreement period. Collectively, our findings highlight the potential of purposeful ownership in promoting corporate sustainability

We study whether and how a country's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance relates to its sovereign borrowing costs in international capital markets. We hypothesize that good ESG performance plays an economic role: It signals a country's commitment to sustainability and long-term orientation and is a buffer against negative shocks, leading to lower sovereign bond yield spreads. Using a sample of 20 OECD countries over the period 1996–2012, we show that countries with good ESG performance are associated with lower default risk and lower sovereign bond yield spreads. Moreover, we show that the social and governance dimensions have a significant negative association with sovereign bond yield spreads, whereas the environmental dimension does not

We show that engagement on environmental, social, and governance issues can benefit shareholders by reducing firms’ downside risks. We find that the risk reductions (measured using value at risk [VaR] and lower partial moments) vary across engagement types and success rates. Engagement is most effective in lowering downside risk when addressing environmental topics (primarily climate change). Further, targets with large downside risk reductions exhibit a decrease in environmental incidents after the engagement. We estimate that the VaR of engagement targets decreases by 9 percent of the standard deviation after successful engagements, relative to control firms.

This article shows how sustainable investing—through the joint practice of exclusionary screening and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration—affects asset returns. I develop an asset pricing model with partial segmentation and heterogeneous preferences. I characterize two exclusion premia generalizing Merton’s (1987) premium on neglected stocks and a taste premium that clarifies the relationship between ESG and financial performance. Focusing on US stocks, I estimate the model by applying it to sin stocks as excluded assets and using the holdings of green funds to proxy for environmental integration. The average annual exclusion effect is 2.79% for the period 1999–2019. Although the annual taste effect ranges from –1.12% to + 0.14% across industries for 2007–19, the taste effect spread between the top and bottom terciles of companies within each industry can exceed 2% per year. Finally, I estimate and explain the dynamics of these premia

We examine the effect of private equity buyouts on the environmental performance of U.S. fossil fuel power plants. Output-scaled CO 2 emissions are, on average, 4.2% lower after buyouts, predominantly because of fuel-saving improvements in production efficiency. Emission intensities decline more significantly following buyouts backed by pro-ESG private equity because of not only greater efficiency gains but also enhanced emission control. Our results suggest that while private equity firms are effective at implementing environmentally beneficial operational changes that also increase profitability, they do not have strong incentives to undertake environmentally beneficial changes that are privately costly, except for those with pro-ESG preferences

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In this paper, we empirically examine whether superior performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) results in lower credit risk, measured by credit ratings and zero-volatility spreads (z-spreads). We are especially interested in how the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) related performance of the corresponding countries moderates this relationship. We find only weak evidence that superior corporate social performance (CSP) results in systematically reduced credit risk. However, we do find strong support for our hypothesis that a country’s ESG performance moderates the CSP–credit risk relationship. Superior CSP is regarded as risk-reducing and rewarded with better ratings and lower z-spreads only if it is recognized by the environment. In addition, we find a reduction of corporate bonds’ z-spreads by approx. 9.64 basis points if the CSP of a company mirrors the ESG performance of the country it is located in

Demand for disclosures on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues has increased dramatically. Using corporate political spending disclosures as our setting, we conduct a detailed inquiry of 541 political spending‐related shareholder proposals from 2004 to 2012 to highlight the role of shareholder activism as a mechanism to motivate ESG disclosure. Unlike earlier studies, we examine both proposals that went to a vote and proposals that were withdrawn by the activist, allowing us to assess more comprehensively the success of shareholder activism. We find that 20 percent of firms targeted by disclosure proposals begin disclosing in the subsequent year, although implementation rates vary by proposal type—8 percent for proposals subject to a vote versus 56 percent for proposals withdrawn. The sponsor is also important: unions and public pension funds are less likely than other activists to target firms with agency problems and are less successful in having proposals withdrawn, and the implementations they obtain are viewed more negatively by the broader investor base. Our findings highlight shareholder proposals as one mechanism through which investors can successfully express their preferences for corporate disclosure policies. Given activists' long‐standing interest in environmental and social disclosure policies, we believe our findings generalize to a broader set of ESG disclosures