ESG (environment, social, and governance) scores are becoming mainstream proxies for evaluating sustainability in organizations. In past years, scholars and managers used ESG scores to express the sustainable development of an organization and other types of sustainability. Meanwhile, increasing literature has shown that ESG scores do not measure sustainability in terms of sustainable development. The main reason ESG scores fail to measure sustainability adequately is that ESG scores are not designed to measure sustainability concepts, such as temporality, impact, resources management, and interconnectivity. Furthermore, ESG scores apply materiality concepts, but what they measure is not always quantifiable, and most agencies that produce ESG scores lack transparency. This research reviewed the challenges and issues associated with ESG scores regarding sustainability representation. Then, based on the sustainability literature, different themes and concepts that would add more sustainability consideration to an ideal ESG score are presented. Since ESG scores are increasingly popular, this paper presents concepts and ideas that would help ESG score agencies include more sustainability principles in their methodologies while redefining the expectations of scholars using them.

Purpose Environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores are becoming increasingly relevant in academic literature and the corporate world. This is partly because the themes covered by ESG scores are intended to resolve multiple major social and environmental issues. However, there is little consensus among academics about the definition of ESG scores and their measures. Many scholars have used ESG scores to represent various issues. The purpose of this study is to gather all definitions that were used by scholar when using ESG scores in their research. Design/methodology/approach This systematic literature review aims to identify how ESG scores are presented in the academic literature. A total of 4,145 articles were identified, of which 342 articles from influential peer-reviewed journals were retained. Findings In the articles, five different thematic definitions emerged in terms of how scholars have used ESG scores in their research: sustainability, corporate social responsibility, disclosure, finance and the analysis of ESG scores. Although some definitions are consistent with the methodologies of the agencies that produce ESG scores, others raise further questions. Caution is required when using ESG scores as a metric. They represent financial adjusted risk-return for some and are used to express business sustainability for others. Research limitations/implications Only top-ranked journals were analyzed. In addition, only the key terms “ESG Score” and “ESG Scores” were used to gather all research papers. Practical implications Researchers could improve the accuracy of their results by developing specific methodologies that are closely related to the issues intended to be measured. The underlying variables composing the ESG scores could be used instead of the final score for more accurate environmental or social issues measurements. Originality/value This research shows that scholars use ESG scores to represent multiple issues that are not always captured by ESG scores’ official methodologies. ESG scores can express the overall performance of environmental and social issues, but they cannot be used to track specific underlying issues.