Measuring Governance-Enabled Sustainability in Central and Eastern Europe: Development of a Corporate Governance–Sustainability Index (CGSI–CEE)

Corporate governance is increasingly recognised as a key mechanism supporting sustainability transparency, accountability, and long-term value creation. While prior research has examined governance–performance relationships and sustainability outcomes using proprietary ESG ratings, evidence on how governance structures enable sustainability disclosure remains limited, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This gap reflects heterogeneous institutional environments and uneven ESG data availability in emerging European markets. To address this limitation, this study develops and applies a Corporate Governance–Sustainability Index for Central and Eastern Europe (CGSI–CEE). The index integrates core governance mechanisms (such as board effectiveness, leadership structure and ownership discipline) with sustainability transparency indicators, namely ESG report publication and CO2 emissions disclosure. The CGSI–CEE is constructed using publicly available firm-level data from CEE blue-chip companies over the 2018–2024 period and follows a transparent, theory-driven weighting scheme. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in governance-enabled sustainability capacity across firms, sectors, and countries. Bivariate results indicate a negative association with short-term accounting profitability and a positive association with market valuation; however, these relationships weaken once firm-level characteristics are controlled for, reinforcing the interpretation of CGSI–CEE as a structural governance-capacity measure rather than a direct performance determinant.