ESG competitiveness assessment metrics of companies

Abstract

The article states that the priority direction of building a modern management strategy of Ukrainian companies, capable of ensuring competitive advantages on world markets within the framework of a full-fledged Euro-Atlantic partnership, is the provision of sustainable development of commercial activity based on a responsible attitude to the environment (E-environment), high social responsibility ( S-social) and high-quality corporate governance (G-governance), i.e. ESG activities. It would seem that during the war, numerous destructions and large-scale relocation of business from territories close to or located in the war zone to safe regions of Ukraine, the issue of ESG sounds quite skeptical. However, responsible investors pay special attention to business compliance with ESG principles. Therefore, Ukrainian companies that adhere to ESG in their activities have a unique opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and the creation of long-term values. It is emphasized that as a result of insufficient regulation of the formation of information support regarding business compliance with ESG principles, enterprises sometimes provide misleading information about their activities, which makes them more environmentally responsible than they really are, that is, they resort to "greenwashing". It is justified that solving the problem of "greenwashing" is possible under the condition of introducing a single metric for determining the integral indicator of ESG-competitiveness of enterprises and determining the limits of its optimality. The author's metric for multi-criteria evaluation of ESG-competitiveness of enterprises is proposed, based on the synthesis of integral and reference approaches, which, unlike the existing ones, provides for the determination of threshold values of the optimality of the indicator of ESG-competitiveness of enterprises and its constituent components E, S, G, which made it possible to form a simulation model of limits optimality, which should become the fundamental basis for decision-making regarding ESG-investing of enterprises, in particular, the metallurgy industry.