Environmental, Social and Governance and Sustainable Development in Healthcare

This book applies environmental, social and governance (ESG) to issues of sustainable development in healthcare. ESG reporting has been widely used for some time in the business industry to show the economic, social and environmental responsibilities of companies that aim to achieve superior ESG performance for lower risk, more accountability and transparency. Moreover, public-listed companies in healthcare have been growing in significant numbers in recent years. The application or practice of ESG in healthcare has become a growing trend for these large organisations looking to demonstrate their strengths in areas of financing, operations, sustainability and social responsibilities. Such an approach is essential not only for the long-term development of the companies but also for services delivered by healthcare practitioners. Equally, the implications to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 is relevant to healthcare worldwide with a growing ageing population, which has led to a great burden of care in many countries, particularly in the public sector. The potential development and expansion in private healthcare services, accelerated by technology advancement, has demanded a new paradigm in the healthcare industry, particularly in business, service delivery and policy. The book examines this paradigm through health in all policies, ESG and SDG 3 objectives, research, training and practice. It is relevant to graduate students and scholars working in areas relating to health, business and the SDGs and is also useful to policymakers and practitioners in healthcare.

Dr. Tiffany C. H. Leung is an assistant professor and BBA coordinator in the Faulty of Business at the City University of Macau, China. She gained her doctorate from the School of Management at the University of St Andrews (Scotland). Her research interests are environmental, social and governance (ESG), social and environmental accounting (SEA), corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics. She won “Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence” in 2017. She was the co-principal investigator of Inter-Institutional Development Scheme (IIDS) and team members of IDS and FDS-funded research project in Hong Kong. Tiffany is the coordinator in the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) North Asia Office in Hong Kong and Macau. Besides, she serves as the editorial board of Social and Environmental Accounting Journal, the board member of Accounting Forum and an ad hoc reviewer in a number of accounting and management journals. She has also published peer-reviewed articles in journals in management, accounting and business ethics.

Dr. Wang-Kin Chiu received his Bachelor of Science (first class honours) and Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is a senior lecturer at the College of Professional and Continuing Education (CPCE) of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Hong Kong, China. He is currently serving as the assistant programme leader of Associate in Health Studies and the assistant award leader of Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Applied Sciences (Health Studies). Dr. Chiu is also a management committee member of the Centre for Ageing and Healthcare Management Research (CAHMR) of SPEED at PolyU. He has published a journal paper and a book chapter on green diet recently and is the principal investigator of a CPCE-funded research project collaborating with another author of this book on the pedagogic design of incorporating systems thinking in chemical education for a sustainable future.

You Shi-Xiang is a DBA student in Business Administration at City University of Macau. Her research interests are corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environment, social and governance (ESG), social and environmental accounting (SEA) and green finance. She is now the president of the sustainability club in the Faculty of Business to organise and promote the SDGs related activities to students. Before coming to Macau, she completed master programme: MS in Accountancy (2018–2019) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She is now a lecturer in the Department of Accounting at Jiangsu University of Technology.

Dr. Ben Y. F. Fong had his medical training at the University of Sydney, where he had also completed a Master’s in Public Health. He is a specialist in Community Medicine, holding Honorary Clinical Associate Professorship at the two local medical schools in Hong Kong, China. He is currently the Professor of Practice (Health Studies) and Associate Division Head of the Division of Science, Engineering and Health Studies of the College of Professional and Continuing Education and director of the Centre for Ageing and Healthcare Management Research of the School of Professional Education and Executive Development at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Dr. Fong has contributed to publications, including The Routledge Handbook of Public Health and the Community (as lead editor, 2021), Primary Care Revisited: Interdisciplinary Perspectives for a New Era (as lead editor, 2020), a training manual for general practitioners in China published by the People’s Medical Publishing House in Beijing (as a co-editor, published in 2020), over 30 health books in Chinese and 60 journal papers.