Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and the Covid-19 pandemic: a systematic review Vaninne Arnaud de Medeiros Moreira, Verônica Scriptore Freire e Almeida, Patrícia Cristina Vasques de Souza Gorisch

Abstract

ESG “environmental, social and governance” practices have been the focus of action by several global actors, in an attempt to create guidelines for companies and society. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the subject became extremely relevant, since the health crisis affected several areas of society's development, especially sustainability goals. The objective of this research was to examine the production of knowledge on this topic. It is a qualitative, bibliographical research within the scope of a systematic review. The methodological approach is constituted by the perspective of a State of Knowledge. The analytical categories arise from the analysis of the works found in the databases of the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD) – developed and coordinated by IBICT, the Scielo platform, the PubMed platform and Google Scholar, between 2020 and 2022. The research provided evidence that better socio-environmental performance led to better financial performance during the pandemic crisis. In this sense, companies that invested most in ESG practices were able to withstand the health crisis with greater financial stability.