Adoption of Blockchain in ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance)
Balwinder Singh, Narinder Kumar Bhasin · 2024
This chapter describes what is ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and the significance of ESG in the present business scenario. ESG refers to the aforesaid three key factors (environmental, social, and governance) while assessing the sustainability and ethical bearing of an investment in an organization. Many of vigilant and socially conscious investors scrutinize companies using ESG standards to screen prospective investments. It is a general term commonly used by prospective investors to appraise the activities and actions of firms and also assess their future financial performance. With the increasing significance of ESG metrics, there has been a notable surge in demand for data from reliable sources to measure ESG factors. But, owing to the inadequacy of reliable data and transparency, the ESG-based sustainability evaluation is an onerous task. This chapter focuses on overcoming this obstacle and deals with how blockchain can provide a tool that is safe and transparent. The chapter also studies how the adoption of blockchain technology helps business organizations to assemble verifiable data and generate reliable reports that establish their ESG credentials.