Beyond Carbon Footprints: Unpacking the Social Dimensions of Sustainability Performance in Emerging Market Firms

Abstract

The increased focus on environmental indicators in the concept of corporate sustainability blurred the importance of the social aspects of sustainability performance, especially regarding the new market companies. The paper has focused on the social aspects of sustainability performance of 312 publicly listed companies in six emerging economies Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Turkey, and Mexico during the period 2021 to 2024. Basing on the stakeholder theory and institutional theory, the study adopted a quantitative research design based on panel data regression and moderation analysis to determine the role of compliance with labor rights, community engagement, and supply chain transparency in determining composite social sustainability performance. Moderating and control variables included corporate governance quality, stakeholder pressure and institutional quality. The results indicated that the three social dimensions all had statistically significant and positive impacts on social sustainability performance, with labor rights compliance found to be the best predictor ( =.29, p <.01). Institutional quality was identified to magnify the correlation between the social practices and the sustainability outcomes, implying that better regulatory conditions allowed firms to transform the social commitments into actual performance benefits. The findings were added to the existing literature on non-environmental sustainability in new economies and provided practical advice to policymakers, managers, and investors wishing to develop holistic sustainability models. It has been noted that the study has shown the urgency of shifting toward a more integrative and socially based concept of corporate sustainability rather than being carbon-centric.