Long-run and short-run dynamics of ESG performance, regulatory quality, and renewable energy investment: CS-ARDL insights from ASEAN
Smita Bodne, Sarika Keswani, Shailesh Rastogi, Rohini Rokde
Abstract. This article examines the time nexus between the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance, quality of regulation, investment in renewable energy, and CO2 emission in ASEAN economies during the period of 2007-2018, to determine whether ESG oriented and institutional mechanisms can help mitigate emissions. The research will use the Cross-Sectionally Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL) framework to overcome cross-sectional dependence, slope heterogeneity, heteroscedasticity, and first-order serial correlationThe findings indicate that there is a high persistence in the CO2 emission (about 95 %). There is a positive and significant effect of ESG performance on emissions in the short run, which implies the transitional or compliance-related costs. The other shock responses that are statistically insignificant include the renewable energy investment, the quality of regulations, the GDP, and carbon intensity. The long-run coefficients are less robust, meaning that ESG performance, the quality of the regulatory environment, and investment in renewable energy have not yet produced any measurable emission reduction in the ASEAN economies. The results highlight that the institutional frameworks need to be more powerful and stronger, the integration of ESG needs to be more profound, and specific policies on renewable energy should be developed to transform the initial ESG programmes into long-term decarbonization results. The analysis is limited by the availability of data, which restricts the sample period and may conceal the long-term structural impacts. The research adds value to the research because it offers evidence based on the CS-ARDL to determine the short and long-term ESG-emissions nexus in ASEAN that illustrates the disconnect between ESG implementation and effective environmental performance.
Keywords
CO2 Emission, Environmental Sustainability, Heteroscedasticity, Renewable Energy Investment, Regulatory Quality
Published online 6/20/2026, 11 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Smita Bodne, Sarika Keswani, Shailesh Rastogi, Rohini Rokde, Long-run and short-run dynamics of ESG performance, regulatory quality, and renewable energy investment: CS-ARDL insights from ASEAN, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 67, pp 265-275, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904176-37
The article was published as article 37 of the book Climate Action and Sustainability
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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