Thomas A. Tsalis

Purpose: Today, environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are very important for the corporate sustainability reporting performance and trustworthiness. To help organizations respond to these expectations, guides have been designed, offering a systematic approach for reporting ESG information. Although such standards facilitate firms to disclose a complete picture of their ESG performance, the effective implementations of these guidelines remain a challenge for the business community. In this context, this paper examines the quality of ESG information disclosed by Greek firms in relation to an ESG guide introduced by the Athens Stock Exchange (Greece) which is in line with the various international standards. Design/methodology/approach: An evaluation framework based on a content analysis technique was constructed that combines a set of reporting topics and a scoring system. This framework was applied to a sample of Greek sustainability reports to assess the quality of the disclosed ESG information. Findings: The findings showed that the sampled firms provide a moderate level of ESG disclosure in terms of both quality and quantity. Environmental issues are the most well-disclosed issues compared to the other two ESG dimensions, with industry sensitivity (i.e. division into sensitive and non-sensitive sectors) being a factor which affects disclosure performance. In contrast the listed status of firms and the publication years do not affect the disclosure quality. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the literature on the quality of ESG disclosures. Focusing on the Greek context, it provides insights into the ESG reporting behavior of firms operating under the common regulatory regime of a European Union member state. It offers empirical evidence on the ESG reporting practices of Greek firms and their initial responses to the requirements of an ESG guideline.

Universities are aware of the imperative of sustainability and are focusing on promoting the aims and principles of sustainable development, such as greening their curriculum, enhancing the environmental performance of their campus and using sustainable criteria in their investment and purchasing behavior. Also, the scope of sustainable development was broadened by the introduction of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Agenda which stipulates new directions for sustainability at a global level. Given this background, this paper examines the level of alignment of universities with the 17 SDGs through an analysis of sustainability reports prepared by universities, in order to highlight the issues which are mostly discussed by universities in relation to SDGs. To do so, an empirical analysis was carried out on a sample of 37 sustainability reports using a methodological framework based on scoring techniques to analyze their content. The findings show that the universities have disclosed more information about climate change mitigation and adaptation practices and less about SDGs regarding quality of education and peace, democracy and strong institutions.

Floods signify one of the most common, widespread and destructive natural perils, affecting approximately 250 million people and causing billions in losses on an annual basis. Such high impact – low probability environmental perturbations can cause abrupt changes and disruption to business entities in flood‐prone areas in terms of asset damages, operational interruptions and increased costs which result in loss of capital and labour, declining revenue and growth. It is therefore critical for businesses to identify such risks and, ultimately, to effectively build their resilience to such physical challenges. Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular are more ill‐prepared to face flooding compared to large companies. Understanding the ability of SMEs to become more resilient to floods is crucial as they account for 99% of all enterprises, constitute the major employer and contributor of the total value‐added of the private sector. In this study, a composite index of factors linked to the resilience capacity of SMEs to flooding is proposed and tested. A sample of Greek SMEs located in three flood‐prone areas (n = 391) was administered a structured questionnaire pertaining to cognitive, managerial and contextual factors that affect the ability to prepare, withstand and recover from flooding events. Through the proposed index, a bottom‐up, self‐assessment, approach is set forth that could assist in standardising such assessments with an overarching aim of reducing the vulnerability of SMEs to floods. This is achieved by examining critical internal and external parameters affecting SMEs' resilience capacity which is particularly important taking into account the limited resources these enterprises tend to have at their disposal and that they can generate single points of failure in dense supply chain networks.

The role of corporate responsibility in the protection of the natural environment is unquestionably a key factor in achieving a stable and sustainable future for modern economies and societies. Thus, the business community implements practices to protect the natural environment and eliminate its negative impacts. Such corporate practices are placed under the umbrella of the sustainable development concept which pursues multifaceted economical environmental and social goals and more recently the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations' (UN) 2030 Agenda. In this context, this paper aims at examining corporate reporting behavior in the energy sector in relation to SDG disclosures during the first years of the introduction of Agenda 2030. An assessment framework was designed to assess the quality and the range of information disclosed in a set of 105 sustainability reports published during the period 2016–2018. The findings of the empirical analysis led to the conclusion that the examined energy firms did not provide an adequate level of information regarding corporate actions toward the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. Both the quality of disclosed information and the number of disclosure topics were low. SDG4 was the main focus of the reports, with the highest reporting performance, whereas the issues covered by SDG16 and SDG1 were discussed the least in the examined reports. Also, in practical terms, the proposed methodology provides a sound basis for further investigation of the sustainability reporting practices from the energy sector in relation to the scope of SDG.

Today, the circular economy is regarded as a promising alternative for modern economies to preserve “virgin” natural resources for future generations by valorizing waste materials. The concept is also used to promote the goals of sustainable development, where, apart from the environmental dimension, the economic and social dimensions are also integrated. So far, the largest part of the related research has emphasized the environmental and economic dimensions, while little attention has been paid to the social dimension of circular economy. Thus, this paper develops a framework to evaluate the social impacts of circular products and materials throughout their life cycle, which is based on social life thinking, circular economy principles and strategies and social responsibility principles. Moreover, computational examples are presented to show the functionality and applicability of the proposed framework. Finally, critical points for future research are pinpointed in order to assist scholars in applying and improving such frameworks through case studies, helping them to better understand the social aspects of circular economy.

The aim of this paper is to examine the Porter hypothesis which defines that environmental regulations, under certain circumstances, could have positive effects on corporate environmental and economic performance. The majority of previous studies are based on questionnaire-based surveys, on normative models and on relative information at country level. To overcome some of the weaknesses of previous works, a benchmarking-scoring framework is suggested to draw useful and valuable information from corporate sustainability reports so as to examine the relationships between four dimensions of corporate performance, namely compliance with environmental legislation, green intellectual capital (GIC), environmental innovations, and corporate environmental performance. The proposed framework was applied in a sample of firms which operate in the metal products industry. The findings show that GIC could be a significant mediating factor between environmental legislation and environmental performance of firms. Additionally, it seems that GIC influences innovations and environmental performance.

From a managerial standpoint, sustainability poses numerous challenges for the business community. One of the prominent concerns in the context of organizational sustainability is the impact of climate change and extreme weather events (EWEs), which create discontinuity and damages to business operations. In this respect, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are particularly vulnerable to EWEs, such as flash floods, having disastrous consequences to SMEs that tend to be ill-prepared. Taking into consideration that these negatives effects are also transferred into the local communities in which SMEs are located, it is crucial to create appropriate mechanisms that will enable these enterprises to build relevant capacities and acquire necessary resources in order to deal with relevant disruptive events. With this in mind, this paper attempts to delineate the emerging literature in relation to strategic approaches in dealing with high impact/low probability EWEs. With this analysis, we aim to provide insights for enhancing the robustness of SMEs against such natural hazards through effective resilience and adaptation strategies. The paper reveals that resilience to EWEs is indeed a multifaceted issue posing numerous challenges to SMEs. Taking into account their intrinsic characteristics, there is a need for a holistic management approach that will assist SMEs to safeguard their assets against extreme weather.