Scenario-based ESG scoring for sustainable financial investments using an advanced multi-facet fuzzy system

Financial Innovation

卷:12

Research

Wei Liu¹  Yedan Shen²  Hasan Dinçer^3,4,5  Serhat Yüksel^3,6  Serkan Eti^7,8 

[1] Clinic of Economics, Azerbaijan State University of Economics (UNEC), Baku, Azerbaijan

[2] School of Economics, Guangdong University of Technology, 510006, Guangzhou, China

[3] Department of Economics and Management, Khazar University, Baku, Azerbaijan

[4] ARUCAD Research Centre, Arkin University of Creative Arts and Design, Northern Cyprus, Mersin 10, Turkey

[5] Faculty of Applied Sciences, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey

[6] University College, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

[7] School of Mathematics and Statistics, Guangdong University of Technology, 510006, Guangzhou, China

[8] School of Business, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Turkey

关键词: Sustainable financial investments;    ESG scoring;    Sustainable finance;    Ethical governance;    Social responsibility;    Financial innovation;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40854-026-00968-z

 received in 2025-10-12, accepted in 2026-09-01,  发布年份 2026

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Sustainable financial investments are emerging as a multidimensional decision-making area that requires a holistic assessment of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. However, the literature demonstrates that the relative importance of each of these criteria on investment performance has not been systematically analyzed, creating a significant uncertainty problem in decision-making processes. While existing studies generally emphasize the importance of factors such as carbon impact, resource efficiency, social responsibility, and ethical practices separately, a holistic prioritization approach to determining which factors play the most decisive role in sustainable financial investment decisions remains limited. This deficiency makes it difficult for investors to determine the correct criteria weights and hinders the efficient use of financial resources. The primary objective of this study is to address this methodological gap and develop a new decision-making model that can identify the most critical factors affecting the performance of sustainable financial investments. The model developed for this purpose calculates criteria importance weights using an information-gain-based dependency-weighting procedure, ranks alternatives using the principal component ranking optimization (PCRO) technique, and manages uncertainty in a multidimensional manner using the dynamic multi-facet fuzzy sets (DMFFSs) approach. This hybrid structure not only produces more flexible and realistic results compared to classical fuzzy logic models but also allows for the amplification of expert opinions with AI support. The analysis results show that social responsibility and ethical practices are the most effective criteria in ESG scoring, while sustainability-based loans and ESG-related fintech platforms represent the most critical alternatives for sustainable financial investments. These findings demonstrate that social and ethical governance directly shape investment performance and that digital financial instruments have the potential to transform sustainable investments. By providing a unique analytical framework for evaluating sustainable financial investments, the study fills a gap in the literature regarding priority analysis and provides a methodological contribution to decision-making under uncertainty.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC-ND   
© The Author(s) 2026

【 图 表 】

Fig. 5

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