Title: Disclosure behaviour of sovereign wealth funds in relation to environmental, social and governance and sustainable development goals

Authors: Marty-Jörn Klein

Addresses: Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1665/1, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic

Abstract: This paper deals with the current state of environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainable development goals (SDG) disclosure by 97 sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) worldwide, which together account for 99% of global total SWF assets. The aim of the paper is to give an overview of current disclosure behaviour for different types of SWFs and on a regional basis in view of the macro-economic environment. Pursuing an econometric approach, we test a series of hypotheses using various measures of the sustainable behaviour of SWFs on both the institutional and country levels. Our findings suggest that self-reported ESG and SDG data are still mostly opaque. Variations in the scope, measurement, and weight of parameters make comparisons difficult. Forty-nine percent of all SWFs do not disclose on ESG, and 73% do not disclose SDG data. Furthermore, 56% of SWFs from developed countries do not report on ESG.

Keywords: SWFs; sovereign wealth funds; ESG; environmental; social and governance; SDG; sustainability reporting; economic development; origin of assets; One Planet SWF initiative; International Forum of SWF; Linaburg-Maduell Transparency Index; reputational risk.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISD.2025.145962

International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2025 Vol.19 No.3, pp.344 - 366

Received: 29 May 2022
Accepted: 02 Feb 2023
Published online: 01 May 2025 *

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