Seeing environmental injustices: the mechanics, devices and assumptions of environmental sustainability indices and indicators

At the heart of any colonization project, and therefore any move to de-colonize, are ways of seeing nature and society, that then allow particular ways of governing each. This is plainly visible in a number of tools that exist to measure progress towards (or regress from) environmental sustainability. The tools use indices and indicators constructed mostly by environmental scientists and ecologists. As such, they are not neutral scientific instruments: they reflect the worldviews of their creators. These worldviews depend on three dimensions: the values they prioritize, the explanatory theories they use and the futures they envision. Through these means different tools produce conflicting notions of the sustainability of our economies and societies. In this article, we shed light onto the theoretical and epistemological assumptions that lie behind key international sustainability indices and indicators: the Environmental Performance Index,Domestic Material Consumption, Material Intensity, the Material Footprint, the Carbon Footprint, the Ecological Footprint and CO2 emissions (territorial). The variables included in these indices, the way they are measured, aggregated and weighted all imply a particular way of understanding the relationships between economy, society and environment. This divergence is most clearly visible in the fact that some indices are negatively correlated with each other. Where one index might plot growing environmental sustainability, another shows its decline. Our results highlight that those devices and the theories informing them are particularly interesting for way how colonialism is materialized. Some of these measurements hide the material roots of prosperity and the ecological (and economic) distributional conflicts exported to the poorer countries by the global North, and others show how its production and consumption levels are reliant upon a socio-ecological 'subsidy' imposed on Southern countries. These subsidies represent injustices that present a primafacie case for decolonizing indices and indicators of environmental governance.

A Comparative Performance Analysis of Sustainability Themed Indices in India: Markov Regime Switching Approach

Sustainability Indices serve as a benchmark for the companies screened for their superior performance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) parameters. This article intends to compare the overall and regime-specific financial performance of socially responsible indices of the National Stock Exchange, Nifty100 ESG and Nifty100 ESG Enhanced with Nifty50 (representing the market) from 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2020. Overall comparative performance analysis of these indices is conducted using risk-adjusted return measures and volatility has been captured through the TGARCH model. Further, time duration has been decomposed into regimes using Markov Regime Switching Model and the comparison of indices has been undertaken in both regimes. Our findings suggest that there is no significant difference between the return performance of sustainability indices and market benchmark index in single time duration and sustainability indices performing marginally better in both the regimes identified. This implies that socially responsible investments in India are providing reasonable returns to investors without comprising non-financial objectives. For corporates, it is a win–win situation to focus on ESG parameters to attract capital from investors and deliver better corporate financial performance and hence increasing the potential of growth of socially responsible investing in India.

Socially Responsible Investing and Sustainable Indices: A Sustainability Agenda

COVID-19 pandemic has brought climate change and socially responsible investing back to the forefront. Sustainable investing, though well-entrenched in developed countries, is slowly gaining traction in emerging markets. Sustainability indices operate as quality indicators and bridge information gap. This study explores the usefulness of three such indices and offers an autoregressive moving average model on Carbonex series for sustainable investments on Bombay Stock Exchange. However, the model fails to align with the long-term goals of socially responsible investing and the investor community needs to engage with regulators, corporations and rating agencies so that these sustainability indices can better serve their information needs and offer a valid measure of sustainable practices. COVID-19 brings with it the opportunity to ideate and envision innovative approaches to support a carbon-free economic agenda and to design eco-friendly infrastructure, planned urban development and transition to clean energy. Take–make–consume–waste attitude is out and the philosophy of preserve–endure–nurture–bequeath will be the new normal.

The Convergence between Sustainability and Conventional Stock Indices. Are We on the Right Track?

The growth of passive and socially responsible (SR) investment makes that sustainability indices play an important role in defining what constitutes a sustainable investment. In order to know the suitability of sustainability indices as benchmarks for SR investors, we used different linear regressions to compare the compositions of sustainability indices and their conventional counterparts and to compare the levels of corporate social responsibility (CSR) of both types of indices. We showed that the composition of sustainability indices gradually converged towards their conventional peers. Moreover, the difference between the CSR levels of both type of indices remained the same or even decreased over time. We concluded that a change in the weighting method of sustainability indices such as the equally weighted criterion would significantly increase the difference from their conventional counterparts. However, due to the relationship between CSR and size, this change would penalize the CSR level of the index. These results raise the question of whether SR passive investors will be able to meet their non-financial expectations as a consequence of the convergence.

Microalgal Biodiesel Production: Realizing the Sustainability Index

Search for new and renewable sources of energy has made research reach the tiny little tots, microalgae for the production of biodiesel. But despite years of research on the topic, a definitive statement, declaring microalgae as an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable resource is yet to be seen or heard of. With technological and scientific glitches being blamed for this delay in the progress of the production system, an assessment of the sustainability indices achieved so far by the microalgal biodiesel is important to be done so as to direct future research efforts in a more coordinated manner to achieve the sustainability mark. This article provides a review of the current economic, environmental, and social status of microalgal biodiesel and the strategies adopted to achieve them, with suggestions to address the challenges faced by the microalgal biodiesel production system.