Digital Technology‑enabled ESG Reporting and Assurance against Greenwashing

Call For Papers

Digital Technology‑enabled ESG Reporting and Assurance against Greenwashing

Journal
Industrial Management & Data Systems

Publisher
Emerald Group Publishing

Submission Deadline
31 July 2026

About this Special Issue
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure obligations for companies are rapidly increasing around the world. Investors are becoming increasingly interested in both financial statements and ESG reports, which are now seen as indicators of management strength and long‑term company prospects. However, ESG reporting faces major challenges related to data authenticity in report preparation, data consistency in report writing, and data transparency in report publication.

At the same time, scrutiny on the quality of ESG information is intensifying. Many companies are implementing systems, processes, and controls to manage ESG data to support performance monitoring and external assurance. The central challenge in ESG assurance remains the credibility and reliability of ESG data.

Digital technologies—such as AI, blockchain, IoT, federated learning, and large language models—offer powerful tools to address these issues and help combat ESG greenwashing. This special issue aims to explore the transformative impact of digital technology on ESG reporting and assurance, and to stimulate high‑quality research on new methodologies, data‑analytic approaches, and empirical applications in this domain. Both theoretical and empirical contributions, as well as interdisciplinary work, are welcome.

Scope & Theme Areas
Submissions are invited on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• AI‑empowered ESG data authenticity

• Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) in ESG reporting

• Blockchain‑enabled ESG data sharing

• Digital asset models for ESG data

• ESG data security and ESG data trading mechanism design

• Federated learning for ESG assurance

• Impact of digital transformation on anti‑greenwashing practices

• Incentive mechanism design for the use of digital technologies in ESG reporting and assurance

• IoT‑enabled ESG data collection

• Knowledge graph of ESG data

• Large Language Models (LLMs) for ESG assurance

• Smart ESG data analytics

Guest Editors

• Dr. Yelin Fu, Shenzhen University, China

• Prof. Yasser Dessouky, San José State University, USA

• Prof. Abraham Zhang, University of Glasgow, UK

• Prof. Ray Y. Zhong, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Key Dates

Submission Guidelines

• Manuscripts must be submitted via ScholarOne Manuscripts using the Industrial Management & Data Systems submission portal.

• During submission, please select the special issue title “Digital Technology‑enabled ESG Reporting and Assurance against Greenwashing” from the dropdown menu under “Please select the issue you are submitting to.”

• Articles must be original, not previously published, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere while under review for this journal.

• Authors should strictly follow the Industrial Management & Data Systems author guidelines, available on the journal’s Emerald page.

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