Understanding Sustainability Principles and ESG Policies

This textbook explores sustainability, climate change, and the corporate responsibility movement from a broad array of perspectives, including the challenges, risks, and opportunities of ESG policies, energy and environmental science, economics and philosophy, and sound public and private sector management. There is no intergenerational issue that is more pressing than the challenge of sustainability and climate change. It is a concern that will only worsen within any reader’s lifetime, especially if we fail to act. At the same time, there is growing concern among corporations arising from the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) paradigm that includes climate risk, future profits, and stakeholder expectations. Many of our leading institutions also increasingly acknowledge a responsibility for corporate decisions since the onset of the Industrial Revolution that plays no small role in bringing us to the existential precipice of our day. This book  provides necessary tools of sufficient sophistication to address complex intergenerational issues, such as global warming, economic justice and fairness, appropriate intergenerational planning, sustainable finance, corporate risk management, and governance.

The book offers a vital resource for students, shareholders, sustainability practitioners, agencies, and advocates interested in climate action, intergenerational accountability, and economic sustainability. 

Colin Read has been teaching economics and finance for forty years, most recently as a Professor of Economics and Finance at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. He also acts as a voice of ESG awareness on a number of corporate boards and consults on sustainability issues. He has written over a dozen books on economics and finance, with his most recent title The Bitcoin Dilemma that describes the financial benefits and environmental costs of cryptocurrencies.