ESG and Sustainability Committee: Catalysts for Corporate Reputation

In today's competitive business environment, the capacity of companies to survive is contingent upon their ability to cultivate a positive reputation. Corporate reputation is a collective representation and output produced by a company from the previous period, which shows the company's capacity to generate benefits for related parties. A favorable reputation can be achieved by responding to stakeholder demands, particularly in the context of sustainability. The increasing environmental and sustainability issues today have led to a gradual rise in public attention towards corporate environmental practices, social responsibility, and sustainable development. Therefore, companies today are implementing the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) model, which will enhance their reputation. This study examines the influence of ESG and sustainability committees on corporate reputation within the context of sustainability. This study was conducted on 79 listed companies on the Indonesia Capital Market that have received ESG assessments. This study employs an unbalanced panel data set with an observation period spanning 2020 to 2023. The data were collected from sustainability reports, annual reports, and data on the Indonesia Capital Market website. They were tested using WarpPLS 7.0, and the resulting output indicated that ESG affects corporate reputation, while the sustainability committee has no effect on corporate reputation. Based on the results obtained, several recommendations can be put forth. First, some companies in Indonesia still do not have a sustainability committee to handle sustainability aspects, so this factor is the cause of the sustainability committee's inability to influence corporate reputation. Therefore, it is recommended that future research examine other factors that are thought to affect corporate reputation. Second, future research is recommended to expand the research sample and observation year. A more comprehensive research sample and extended observation year make the research results more comprehensive.