Measuring and Reporting ESG: A Systematic Review of Frameworks for Financial Sustainability

The escalating prominence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria within contemporary corporate practice has generated a proliferation of measurement and reporting frameworks, creating substantial challenges regarding comparability and standardisation. This study aimed to critically analyse and synthesise the scholarly literature on ESG measurement and reporting frameworks from an accounting perspective. A systematic review adhering to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines was conducted, searching Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science databases for the period 2020–2025, yielding a final corpus of 50 peer-reviewed articles. Findings reveal that Stakeholder Theory and Institutional Theory constitute the predominant conceptual underpinnings, with three framework categories identified: measurement, reporting, and integrated approaches. The analysis evidenced persistent methodological heterogeneity among ESG metrics and considerable variation in achieved comparability levels. Notably, the governance dimension remains underdeveloped relative to environmental and social dimensions, and small and medium-sized enterprises continue to be underrepresented despite their economic significance. This review contributes by providing a classification of ESG frameworks and their theoretical foundations, whilst identifying gaps that delineate avenues for future inquiry.