Relationship between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Performance and Corporate Debt Levels in ASEAN

Hendra Rifki Yuadma, Aria Farah Mita

Abstract


This research aims to analyze the relationship between Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Performance, which is proxied through ESG scores, and corporate debt levels in ASEAN. Previous research has focused more on the influence of ESG performance on financial performance and not many have examined the influence of EGS performance on company debt levels. This research also uses Covid-19 as a moderating variable in the relationship between ESG and company debt levels. The ESG scores used in this study were obtained from Eikon Refinitiv. This research sample consists of 944 company years originating from 325 companies listed on the capital markets of 7 ASEAN countries during 2017-2021. The results of this research show that ESG performance is positively and significantly related to company debt levels. This shows that companies with better ESG performance are able to obtain more debt. Another result of this finding is that the Covid-19 pandemic has no effect on the relationship between ESG performance and company debt levels. This research is expected to be able to fill the gap in existing research regarding the influence of ESG performance on company debt levels by taking into account the Covid-19 factor. The limitation of this research is that there are very few companies in ASEAN that have ESG scores. This will create the possibility of differences in results if similar research is carried out with data from countries outside the ASEAN region.

Keywords


Sustainability Performance, ESG, Firm Debt Level, Covid-19, and ASEAN

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.21107/jaffa.v12i2.27551

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