A Business Strategy or Compliance? Review of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Landscape

ABSTRACT Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors have gained significant prominence within the corporate landscape, becoming essential to the sustainability and success of modern business models. Companies are increasingly required to integrate sustainable and responsible practices into their daily operations to meet stakeholder expectations and ensure long‐term competitiveness and resilience. This paper offers a comprehensive viewpoint by integrating bibliometric and systematic literature review approaches to analyse the existing body of literature on nonfinancial reporting. The outcomes suggest five principal research domains within the ESG framework: the evolution of ESG reporting, the relationship between ESG and financial performance, the impact of ESG on corporate management, the influence of corporate governance on ESG performance and the connection between ESG and investment decisions. This study highlights the literature gaps and offers future research recommendations for each domain. Consequently, this study will assist researchers in highlighting unexplored subfields, which suggest potential avenues for expanding the scientific literature on this topic. Moreover, this study assists practitioners and managers in examining the principal research themes within the academic domain, providing insights to enhance and align business activities with contemporary sustainability trends.