**3.4 Disagreement among ESG data providers about what should be considered as "ESG"**

Even though it is clear what ESG stands for (i.e., "environmental," "social," and "governance"), but there is no clear consensus about the definition and measurement of each ESG component as well as what should be considered as their subcomponents. Sarajoti et al. [62] used the framework of Sheehy [63] to discuss two reasons that can explain the difficulty of developing and achieving a consensus in defining CSR (corporate social responsibility). It can be argued that CSR and ESG are related, but they are not the same concept. Gao et al., [64] argued that CSR focuses on several stakeholders that include customers, regulators, and environmentalists. On the other hand, ESG focuses on a much narrower group of stakeholders. ESG focuses primarily on investors and particularly on the long-term or "sustainable" performance of corporations. In this section, we will use the similar approach as in Sarajoti et al. [62] and Sheehy [63], discuss why it can be difficult and challenging to develop and achieve consensus in defining ESG. The first reason is that there is no universal agreement on what are environmental, social, and governance practices that lead to the best long-term or "sustainable" performance of corporations. As a society, we might have some "rough" agreement on what are good practices in the aspects of environmental, social, and governance such as emitting CO+ or PM 2.5 pollutants is not good, committing fraud is not good, and discriminating against minorities is not good. However, from the perspective of investors, we lack the exact detail on what is good or what is bad for the best long-term or "sustainable" performance of corporations (does it mean emitting PM 2.5 anywhere is bad or just in the city and also "which city?"). Second, we do not have generally agreeable consensus of which "good practices" in the aspects of environmental, social, and governance that investors should focus as well as "how much" of these good practices investors should focus. Clearly, we cannot promote all good practices and discourage all bad practices in the aspects of environmental, social, and governance as these practices could be too many. Thus, it is natural and practical to select and prioritize on a few of these practices when measuring ESG. This is why some ESG agencies end up with different components used in measuring ESG performance. Also, even if we can agree that emitting PM 2.5 pollutants is not good for the long-term or "sustainable" performance of corporations, but "how much" will be considered too much. We suggest that future studies examine the above issues in more detail.

*Perspective Chapter: The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Investment and Its… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108381*
