The Esg-Oriented Approaches to Developing a Sustainable Rail Freight Market: Methodology and Effectiveness Assessment

Б. А. Аймагамбетова, Olga Kisselyova, Роза Мусалиева, Yerzhan Karsybayev, Marzhan Chazhabayeva

Communications - Scientific letters of the University of Zilina, 2026

Full text Open access: Gold Metadata (CSL-JSON)

DOI 10.26552/com.c.2026.053

Data confidence 70 medium

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Abstract

In this paper, the sustainability of Kazakhstan's rail freight market was analyzed in the context of the influence of ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) variables. The data used (secondary data 2018-2024) and the expert surveys (regression, SEM (Structural Equation Modelling), DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis)) revealed that ESG factors have a significant impact on performance (R² = 0.85), competitiveness (R² = 0.82), and stability (R² = 0.84). The most powerful factors were corridor efficiency (β = 0.421) and service quality (β = 0.370) with negative effects being energy consumption (β = -0.312) and emissions (β = -0.275). The SEM path coefficients ranged 0.597-0.652; DEA scores ranged 0.87-0.94.