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Can corporate sustainability truly deliver financial benefits? Without a clear business rationale, ESG initiatives risk becoming hollow exercises in reputation management or regulatory compliance. Decades of research have consistently demonstrated that corporate sustainability can generate tangible financial returns in many regions. However, scholarly research on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region’s corporate sustainability practices has been very limited, often due to the perception that these companies adopted ESG initiatives later than their global peers. To address this knowledge gap, a group of three scholars (Catalina Stefanescu-Cuntze, Catarina Sa, and myself) have recently completed the first comprehensive study of GCC companies through an ESG lens. This research is currently under peer review at a leading finance journal.

Our study analyzed monthly ESG data for 54 publicly traded firms in the GCC region from January 2009 to May 2023. We included ESG scores, as well as separate E, S, and G scores, along with company size, stock returns, country, and industry information. Our sample covered large, mid-, and small-cap companies across 11 industries. To examine the relationship between ESG practices and financial performance, we employed random effects........

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