Modern approaches to assessing and characterizing ESG orientation of Russian regions

This article is dedicated to the studying of current approaches to assessing ESG performance in regions and analyzing the ESG orientation of Russian regions. It reveals the most popular method for evaluating ESG performance – the formation of regional ESG ratings. Currently a large number of methods and approaches for assessing the ESG performance of countries and regions have been developed by Russian and international companies. The article gives a description and identifies the specific features of the formation of ESG indexes for cities and regions by SBER and VEB.RF, the «Ranking of Russian Regions by Sustainable Development Goals» by MGIMO, the Robeco Country Sustainability Ranking, the «ESG Ranking of Russian Regions» by RAEX, and the ISS ESG Country Rating. The relevance of evaluating the ESG performance of regions is connected with the possibility of ranking them, assessing their investment attractiveness and determining the level of sustainability of the regions. The ranking results are presented using the example of 85 regions of the Russian Federation based on the developed ESG rating. As a result of the study, Russian regions are divided into 4 groups: industrially developed regions, agricultural regions, regions with a high level of urbanization and environmentally vulnerable regions. This made it possible to identify key factors of uneven development of regions – economic specialization, the level of technological development, the implementation of state policy in the field of ESG, the investment climate. The article also identifies issues in the formation of these ratings and suggests measures to eliminate them.