Enhanced Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Claims and Escalated Poverty Transport Section: A Case of Selected Corporate Sectors of Pakistan

Transportation is considered the backbone of any corporate sector, from the delivery of raw materials to final products in the market. In this way, the transport sector is the main contributor to carbon emissions in the environment. Environment, social, and governance (ESG) mechanisms are adopted by companies to reduce environmental burdens. Intriguingly, the people associated with the transport section are under the poverty line. This study is designed to evaluate the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) of people associated with the transport section of different corporate sectors of Pakistan, along with calculations of ESG scores and carbon emissions of those sectors. MPI values indicated an increasing trend along with escalated ESG score claims and carbon emissions. Regression analysis indicates an insignificant relationship between ESG and emissions, while Pearson correlation analysis has shown a strong relationship between MPI and emissions and a negative relationship between ESG and emissions. Principal component analysis (PCA) for the overall dataset indicated the highest variation by MPI in PC1, followed by emissions.