Highlights We examine the role of ESG performance during market-wide financial crisis. We focus on the period of financial crisis triggered by COVID-19. ESG performance lowers financial risk during a crisis. High-ESG (performance) portfolios generally outperform low-ESG portfolios. We make use of a novel ESG dataset for China’s CSI300 members.

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This paper contributes to the current literature by adopting dynamic conditional correlation and asset pricing models to discover how the dynamics of international oil prices affect energy related stock returns in China. After conditioning for structural instability, the results show a much stronger relation following the 2008 financial crisis. We argue that this reflects the fact that investors in the Chinese stock market, especially for energy related stocks, are more sensitive to the shocks in international crude oil market.

This study explores the empirical relationships between GHG emissions and an extensive range of business performance measures for UK FTSE-350 listed firms over the first decade or so of such reporting. Despite the popular and policy generated environmental imperatives over this perioddalong with growing evidence of the corporate added-value of having an ‘environmental conscience’, voluntary disclosure of emissions has been slow to adopt by firms. The leading contribution is to present clear evidence of a non-linear relationship, initially increasing with firm performance and then decreasing. An extensive pattern of non-reporting of emissions is also observed over time, and prior literature has introduced questions of endogeneity existing between firm performance and emissions. Steps are taken to ensure confidence/robustness of the results to these concerns. Accordingly, a two-stage (Heckman-type) selection model is used to analyse the emissions-performance nexus conditional upon the firm choosing to report (i.e. treating the choice to report as being endogenously determined with firm performance). From thisdin addition to confirming the robustness of the non-linear relationshipdit can be observed that the decision to report emissions is not directly influenced by wider social/ governance disclosure attitudes of a firm, thus suggesting that firms disassociate environmental responsibility from social responsibility