Korea University Business School (hereafter KUBS) has recently established Environmental, Social and Governance (hereafter ESG) Research Center aiming to conduct a rigorous research on the related field as well as provide support to establish a curriculum that helps students to understand practical ways for organizations to practice sustainable and transparent corporate management while protecting the environment.

KUBS ESG Research Center will conduct research in five different areas: i) ESG Regulation, ii) ESG Financing, iii) ESG-themed M&A, iv) ESG Innovation and v) ESG Reporting. For instance, organizations will need to study strategies to respond to ESG regulations and their impact on corporate investment or financing. It is also necessary to study ESG-themed M&A or innovative measures to incorporate new technologies into ESG activities. Furthermore, research on how companies communicate these ESG activities with various stakeholders through sustainability management report is also very essential. Along with conducting ESG Research in these five areas, the ESG Research Center will also continue doing rigorous research on ESG management evaluation indicators, discover cases of outstanding ESG activities and accumulate data to deliver information that can be used for ESG management.

Corporate ESG activities are emerging issues in which not only organizations but also various stakeholders surrounding them are intertwined, and investors, customers, credit rating agencies and the government, who are key stakeholders of the company, are strongly demanding that companies should have a high level of ESG management system. In this situation, specific measures should be implied to help companies establish management strategies from an ESG perspective as well as communicate information fairly and objectively with stakeholders about ESG performance, and these social demands are mainly focused on business administration targeting companies and related stakeholders.

In order to respond to these social needs, KUBS ESG research center will work efficiently to enhance corporate sustainability and corporate value through research and education on desirable ESG management systems, while further promoting corporate ESG activities. KUBS ESG Research Center is expected to generate innovative research results through preemptive research activities, aiming to be able to grow into the one of the prestigious research institutions in the ESG field and will greatly contribute to the improvement of the research performance.