Regulation of ESG-Ecosystem: Context and Content Evolution: Energy Sector Study

The covid-19 pandemic since February 2020 and energy market crisis since September 2021 have triggered social and political shifts in the conceptual framework that formed the new role of regulation, public engagement and corporate governance in meeting new challenges. The ESG systems have been built around the logic of global investors to value a company in line with a wide range of socially desirable ends, but various forms are observed of the local implementation of the UN SDGs (United Nations sustainable development goals), which are perceived with nuances in various communities. Since the changes of the early 2020s the differences have been reinforced by a new division of responsibilities between essential social actors, the authorities (including local and national State governments, and integration regulatory bodies, such as European regulators) and private business. The ESG logic is now completed with new core components of the ESG-ecosystem, especially, in the energy sector that plays a decisive role in the local infrastructure constructed for activities of population and businesses. This new systemic vision determines the interest of this paper to examine question of the new content of the basic aims and assumptions of the ESG regulation. It was supposed that the ESG ecosystem is a systematic approach, realized in the assessment procedures, evolution of regulation and goal-setting models implemented by the actors of society. The hypotheses were checked with the methodology of case study: for the corporate governance, the cases were investigated in the energy sector and large energy-intensive industry of metals and mining; for regulation, the examples of the UN, EU, Russia and China rules in the field of ESG issues are examined. The distinctive analysis is applied to measure the CO2 impact related to the production and to the consumption, it demonstrates the evolution of the worldwide division of labor and distinguishes the location of carbon-intensive production and consumption in regions. The ESG rules reflect the position of a country as a net producer or net consumer of goods with an important CO2 impact. The investigated corporate governance cases show that the companies in energy sector have not reduced their engagement in the ESG issues and enhanced the ESG policy in the construction of tough ties with local communities and State authorities. These case studies allow researchers to conclude about the new understanding of the ESG ecosystem as a promising conceptual framework to develop a deeper understanding of the corporate and society activities in the purpose to harmonize the economic and social welfare.