Sustainable development and the ESG agenda: key issues

Abstract

The concept of sustainable development proclaimed by the UN in 1987 determined the main priorities of economic development throughout the world. The essence of sustainable development is defined as the preservation of the environment, natural resources for future generations. The results of the analysis of the directions of sustainable development (based on the submitted reports) confirmed that the process of implementing the concept and the ESG agenda are carried out in modern conditions, but the results often represent an arbitrary set of indicators. The basic provisions of the concept of sustainable development and the ESG agenda, the theory of enterprise management, the theory of performance evaluation, management of environmental and social development of the enterprise, corporate social responsibility, etc. are used. Three key problems of the concept of sustainable development implementation and the ESG agenda are identified. They are the lack of a unified methodology for assessing indicators of sustainable development; the imbalance of indicators both by components (environmental, social, managerial development) and as part of each component; the absence of financial indicators in the ESG-reporting, which does not allow assessing the possibilities of sustainable development which requires significant financial support. Conclusions are drawn about the need to resolve the identified key problems of the concept of sustainable development implementation and the ESG agenda which will allow to unify the process of evaluating results, conduct a reasonable comparative analysis, correctly determine management actions to achieve sustainable development.