A critical review of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices in the transportation sector: How does it contribute to SDGs?

The transportation sector is vital to society, and its sustainable development is crucial for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which emphasize social equity, economic stability, and environmental protection. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices, serving as sustainable development at the corporate level, contribute to the global SDGs achievement. Nonetheless, existing studies often generalize ESG indicators across industries, overlooking sector-specific needs and SDG alignment in the transportation sector. To address this gap, this study constructs a customized ESG indicator system, Trans-ESG-SDG, tailored to the transportation industry using a mixed-methods approach that combines a systematic literature review with a case analysis of four international railway companies. The novel ESG indicator system identifies 28 key indicators (9 environmental, 12 social, and 7 governance) and maps them explicitly to the SDGs, considering temporal coordination, systemic interactions, and practical implementation challenges. The result reveals that the current academic researches take “Policy innovation”, “Employee right”, “Relationship with stakeholders” and “ESG disclosure” as necessary indicators. On the contrary, “Pollution prevention”, “Diversity and equal opportunity”, “Health and safety” and “Fair operating practices” attract most attention in the practical transportation industry. While the ESG indicator system provides practical guidance, limitations persist in data availability, indicator granularity, and cross-sector applicability. Future research is recommended to develop third-level indicators, explore regional variations, and validate the framework empirically across transportation sub-sectors.