ESG Investment, ESG Risk Management, And The Development Of Sustainrisk Performance: A Literature Review

Abstract

This study develops the concept of SustainRisk Performance by synthesizing evidence on ESG Investment and ESG Risk Management. A structured qualitative literature review was conducted on ten peer-reviewed international journal articles published between 2022 and 2026. The review corpus was restricted to studies directly addressing ESG in relation to investment return, volatility, portfolio diversification, financial risk, climate risk, stock crash risk, or financial stability. Articles that were non-peer-reviewed, duplicated, outside the ESG-risk-return focus, or did not provide evidence relevant to the conceptual synthesis were excluded. The selected studies were coded by research focus, theoretical basis, method, risk-return findings, and sustainability implications. The synthesis shows that ESG is more consistently associated with risk mitigation and resilience than with uniformly higher returns; the strength and direction of outcomes vary by market, investment horizon, and risk measure. Based on these converging and contrasting findings, SustainRisk Performance is proposed as a conceptual construct integrating ESG quality, risk management, return stability, sustainability performance, and market resilience. The study contributes a clearer conceptual foundation and preliminary indicators for future empirical validation of the construct.