Can Sovereign ESG Help Guide Nation-States’ Transformative Change?

Rebeca Sanchez Enriquez, Ellen Hillbom and Andres Palacio

Journal of Sustainable Development, 2025, vol. 18, issue 1, 56

Abstract: This study examines the role of the Sovereign ESG framework in assessing national progress toward Transformative Change (TC) via environmental, social, and governance metrics. Using data from the World Bank Sovereign ESG Data Portal, we conduct an empirical explorative quantitative study and analyze ESG development across country income groups to identify sustainability challenges and opportunities. The research addresses ESG development status, barriers to progress, and the framework’s potential to support TC-focused policies. We find a relationship between income levels and the implementation of sustainable policies and promoting equitable development, that higher-income countries are often the largest consumers and polluters, and that lower-income countries face considerable challenges related to food security, basic service provision, and social inequality. Further, governance indicators tend to improve as income levels rise, and hence, the progress toward sustainability shows substantial variation based on a country’s development stage. We argue that the Portal provides valuable takeaways in terms of its contribution to identifying priority areas and facilitating cross–country comparisons and in the way it provides arguments for promoting international collaboration, strengthening institutional capacity, and contextualizing global standards. While better data is highly desirable, we conclude that the Sovereign ESG concept paired with the Portal metrics can be a valuable framework for nation-states when tracking sustainability progress. We end with a few policy-related suggestions related to environmental sustainability, global solidarity, contextualization, affordable clean energy, and future research.

Date: 2025
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