TTIA

• Ref.: PID2025-169535OB-I00
• Principal Investigators: Martí Guash & Petya Platikanova 
• Funding body: MCIU-FEDER
• Duration: 36 months
• Period: September 2026 – August 2029

The project Turning Talk into Action: Financial, Informational, and Regulatory Forces Behind Real Corporate Sustainability (TTIA) examines how markets and institutions translate ESG pressures into real environmental and social outcomes. In a context of political backlash toward ESG, persistent pollution, and Europes (green) innovation gap, this proposal aims to study how external forces shape firms investment, operating, and innovation decisions toward sustainability. It focuses on three market channels: financial (lenders and investors), informational (financial analysts), and regulatory (disclosure mandates, environmental taxation, and gender quotas). Part 1 Financial channel analyzes how credit and equity markets influence the emergence, scaling, and direction of green innovation. One research line studies whether loan contract terms and the use of green patents as collateral facilitate or constrain costly, uncertain environmental R&D. A second line examines how stock-market reactions to green patents inform corporate subsequent innovation paths, with strong price signals favouring more ambitious environmental technologies. Part 2 Information intermediary channel investigates the role of financial analysts as ESG information processors and agenda setters. The first research line studies whether stronger analyst ESG attention induces firms to build environmental capabilities by reallocating human capital toward green roles. The second line evaluates whether analysts ESG discourse shapes the composition of R&D portfolios, the continuation of green research lines, and firms decisions to file or abandon environmental patents. Part 3  Regulatory channel evaluates three policy instruments. First, it examines whether Spains mandatory ESG disclosure regime leads to measurable reductions in pollution and adjustments in operating practices rather than purely symbolic compliance. Second, it studies how emission-based taxation affects facility-level emissions and firms technological upgrading through green patenting and cleaner production choices. Third, it analyzes whether gender quotas on boards and governing bodies increase womens participation in inventor teams, thus reorienting innovative effort toward more diverse and collaborative domains. Empirically, the project combines facility-level emissions and pollution data, detailed loan characteristics, stock-market reactions, patent information, analyst call transcripts, and job postings (among others) into an original data infrastructure. It employs advanced panel methods, event studies, and quasi-experimental designs to produce credible empirical evidence. The research team brings complementary expertise in sustainability accounting, corporate finance, innovation, management control, and ESG assurance, with a strong record of publications in international peer-reviewed journals. The project is supported by two institutional advisors ICAC and Pacto Mundial Red Española who act as a steering committee, provide continuous feedback, and co-develop policy briefs. Through academic publications, open materials, and targeted policy outputs, the project aims to advance scientific knowledge and deliver actionable guidance to regulators, firms, investors, and civil-society organisations on how to turn ESG talk into effective sustainability action.