The role of environmental, social, and governance responsibilities and economic development on achieving the SDGs: evidence from BRICS countries

Abstract

Sustainable development goal (SDG) achievement has gained increasing trend due to the current economic uncertainty that demands the attention of scholars, practitioners, and regulators. Hence, the study examines the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) responsibilities and economic development such as economic growth, net national income and FDI on the SDG achievements in BRICS countries. The secondary data is considered for the study which was collected from various resources like SDG reports published by the united nation and World Bank Indicators (WDI) from 1991 to 2020. The current research has checked them without structural breaks stationarity using Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test, Phillips–Perron (PP) test, and Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin (KPSS), while stationarity with structural breaks has been examined using the ‘zivot-andrews’ test. The study also employed the ARDL technique to verify the association among the constructs. The findings revealed that ESG responsibilities, economic growth, net national income, FDI, and inflation positively correlate with SDG achievements in BRICS countries. This article provides help to the regulators while making policies related the SDG achievement.