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The purpose of this study is to examine whether sustainable and responsible investing (SRI) outperforms the benchmark index investing across different time frames globally.

Based on the systematic weighted environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings compiled by Thomson Reuters Asset4, the authors assess the stock market performance and risk of highly compliant firms portfolio in seven different countries; grouped as developed and developing nations over different time frames by adopting the Jensen’s alpha model (CAPM) and the Fama and French three-factor model.

The study finds that SRI portfolios significantly underperform their benchmark index, in case of, the developing nations, however, enjoy a significantly lower risk. This is contrary to the findings in case of developed nations, where the US SRI portfolio has significantly outperformed the benchmark index and the UK and Australia SRI portfolios have performed in line with the benchmark index. Finally, the study discusses results and implications for regulators, practitioners and investors’ who believe in the SRI investing.

This study provides empirical support for the practitioners, policymakers and investors emphasizing that in the case of developed nations SRI investments generate a significant excess return or at the best perform in line with the broader market index. However, in the case of developing nations, very few firms are consistently rated on ESG parameters. This provides lesser options for investors in developing nations to apply the “impact first” philosophy of investment. The investor’s community and regulators need to make a serious effort in promoting firms to take up sustainability effort seriously.

The unique contribution of this study is that it considers a wider definition of the term “sustainability” and examines the performance of SRI investment in developed vs developing countries. This is one of the few studies at the global level, which highlights whether sustainable investing generates abnormal risk-adjusted returns for the investors.

The study aims to investigate the relationship between aggregate and individual dimensions of sustainability and financial and stock market performances of the firms in the travel and tourism industry (TTI) across different geographies.

The sample under study consists of 146 firms belonging to TTI that have consistently obtained environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating over the period 2011–2017 as a part of Thomson Reuters Asset 4 ESG database. An empirical multivariate panel data model is developed to analyse the impact of sustainability (ESG) on firm profitability and market value within three tourism-related industries (transportation, hotel and leisure).

The study extends the existing literature by investigating the impact of each of the vital dimensions of sustainability performance – ESG – and examines how each dimension would affect financial performance and market value among firms within three tourism-related industries (transportation, hotel and leisure). Among the three tourism industries, hotel industry is observed to have the highest ESG compliance, followed by the transportation industry. Based on the agency and stakeholder theory, the authors hypothesized all ESG components to have significant positive effect on the financial and stock market performance; however, the results reveal that each dimension has different impact on financial performance and market value of firms in the tourism industry.

The study could help firms in the travel and tourism industries to understand which of the dimension of ESG activities is significantly important for their financial and stock market performance.

The unique contribution of this study is that it considers wider definition of the term “Sustainability” and examines the relationship between financial and stock market performances of the firms and each component of ESG. This is one of the few studies at the global level that provides much needed evidence in the area of sustainability performance by the travel and tourism firms.

The case is written based on publicly available data from primary sources such as the company’s annual reports, company website and the company’s presentations, as well as from secondary sources comprising newspaper articles, research papers, research magazines, magazine articles, industry reports, research reports, etc. as indicated in the references. The company’s financials and peer data are sourced from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database.

The case examines the financial position of Macy’s, Inc., America’s largest and one of the oldest premier departmental stores, with a consolidated annual turnover of US$18,097m in the fiscal year 2020/2021 (FY, 2021). Over the previous few years, the company had been struggling with decreasing market share and profitability mainly due to increasing competition from online retailers and deep discounters, which was affecting the company’s share price. With the appointment of a new chief executive officer (CEO) in fiscal year (FY) 2017, Macy’s, Inc. undertook several changes to revive its financial health and improve its market share. However, it still registered heavy losses of US$3,944m in the FY 2020/2021, the company’s first time in the past decade. With many retailers filing for bankruptcy, was there more that Macy’s could do to improve the company’s position and regain lost investor confidence? Will its entry into emerging markets play a crucial role in its turnaround?

The case can be used in undergraduate and postgraduate courses such as accounting for managers, financial statement analysis, management accounting, introduction to accounting and advanced financial statement analysis. The case can also be effectively used to understand the primary fundamental analysis of the company that involves understanding the company’s positioning and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis. The case would also help business management and entrepreneurship students to get a preliminary idea about the change management process. Finally, the case can be used to familiarize students with using Microsoft Excel to build financial analysis worksheets.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

The aim of this paper is to study whether adoption of sustainability policies by firms makes their stock market performance resilient to the downside risk during the crisis period.

The paper empirically examines the relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) and stock market performance for Indian companies that have consistently been a part of Refinitiv Eikon ESG database. Further, the study examines whether there exist significant differences in stock market performance of high ESG and low ESG-compliant firms during crisis period. The sample was made up of 70 Indian firms studied over the period 2016–2019 defined as “normal period” as well as for the declared COVID-19 crisis period, i.e. January–March 2020, and full year 2020. The authors used multivariate panel data regression, robust least square multivariate regression, pooled OLS model and two-stage least square regression method.

The study extends the existing literature by investigating the impact of ESG performance on market value of firms during the crisis period. Based on the stakeholder and “flight to safety” theory, the authors hypothesized that ESG would have significant positive effect on the stock market performance during crisis period; however, the results provide robust evidence that in a well-specified model capturing the effect of accounting-based measures of performance, Size, Growth, Risk and Dividend yield, ESG had no explanatory power over the stock market performance of ESG-compliant firms during crisis period. Furthermore, no significant difference in stock market performance indicators between high and low ESG-compliant firms was observed during the crisis period of 1Q2020 as well as for full year 2020. On contrary, the study finds dividend yield to be statistically significant in determining stock market performance of Indian firms during crisis period. The study extends the existing literature by coining the term, “ESG irrelevance” during crisis period.

The main limitation of this study is its limited sample size because there are very few Indian firms that have secured consistent ESG rating. The study focuses on consistently rated firms to avoid the impact of “greenwashing”. Further, the study is focused on India, which limits the generalizability of our findings to other emerging countries.

To the best of our knowledge, this is among the first few studies that examines sustainability and stock market performance of Indian firms during COVID-19-led crisis period. Our findings highlight no significant difference between stock market performance of high ESG firms and low ESG firms indicating that investors who wish to create wealth by investing in ESG-compliant stocks in India can do so without worrying about the companies’ ESG rating scores.

The purpose of this paper is to study whether corporate sustainability impacts profitability performance.

The sample under study consists of 58 Indian firms that are consistently a part of Thomson Reuters Asset 4 ESG database. An empirical multivariate panel data model is developed to analyse the impact of sustainability (environmental, social and governance) on firm profitability. Further, the study seeks to understand whether firms ranked high on sustainability parameters perform better compared to low-ranked firms. This has been tested by applying parametric t-test.

The study reveals a significant positive relationship between sustainability and firm performance measures (return on invested capital, return on equity, return on assets and earnings per share). Empirical evidence suggests that firms that practice remarkable sustainable development strategies report higher profitability and have substantially low gearing level.

This study provides empirical support for the practitioners, policy makers and academicians emphasising strongly on the role played by deployment of sustainable environmental, social and governance efforts in enabling firms to achieve the profit maximisation objective. In the long term, strategies that take sustainability criteria into account have the capacity to create long-term value and provide firms with competitive advantage. The findings provide impetus to many mid- and large-capitalised Indian firms to initiate the adoption of sustainable measures in business policy formulation. The market valuation perception on sustainability practices followed by Indian firms leaves scope for future research.

Empirical evidence on the link between sustained sustainability efforts by corporates and their profitability from a developing nation context is limited. This paper provides much-needed evidence in the area of sustainability performance from India – one of the largest, rapidly developing economies in the world.