Socially responsible investment (SRI) encompasses both ethical and financial paradigms. This systematic literature review explores three key research themes within the SRI literature, identifying a significant disconnect between themes and a fixation on the financial (as opposed to ethical) paradigm. One of the foundations of SRI is environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics. This review confirms the importance of ESG metrics in the SRI field, as they play two crucial roles, namely, as a proxy for sustainability performance and an enabler of the SRI market. However, there are two main issues related to ESG metrics that undermine their reliability: a lack of transparency and a lack of convergence.

Measurement quality of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating is important, considering the increasing interest in socially responsible investment. This paper examines the measurement quality of four ESG ratings. Comprehensive analysis of the ratings, including its dimensionality, reliability, and validity suggests that they have significantly different measurement construct and measurement concerns, despite some commonalities. This study also presents a novel approach to examine the convergence of ESG ratings by assessing the level of agreement. The results of interrater reliability analysis suggest that while the agreement between ESG scores is low, there is evidence of a low to moderate agreement of ESG rankings.

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