Financial and Technological Innovation for Sustainability

Book excerpt: The COVID-19 crisis has proven that sustainability of an institution or organization requires a constant review of one’s strategic positioning and the execution of pertinent plans in response to evolving externalities. Resilient organizations continue to revive themselves through effective R&D and the renewal of their range of products and services. Financial and Technological Innovation for Sustainability: Environmental, Social and Governance Performance examines approaches to sustainability under the ongoing development of energy sustainability and the green finance initiatives. It unveils global heterogeneous efforts in achieving Environmental Social Governance (ESG) performance in light of climate change, global sustainability and concerns over corporate “greenwashing”. The book assembles a wealth of case studies from a variety of contemporary organizations that actively pursue sustainable development while seeking their next economic growth. These global cases demonstrate the salience of governance that institutes continuous advancements to enable the timely revitalization of corporate strategies, technological innovation and deployment of financial resources for sustainability transformation regardless of their stages of lifecycle. They reveal distinct approaches to financial and technological innovation in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America in pursuing the shared UN Sustainable Development Goals. The intertwined public-private partnership and implications of geopolitics under an evolving global financial system for sustainability transformation are articulated. This book will appeal to academics as well as business and finance professionals, who are keen to understand the interrelationship between financial and technological innovation, and to those who want to comprehend the underlying global challenges and opportunities of adopting emerging technologies to reinvent a business model that forges measurable and impactful ESG performances.