The research team, led by Ibrahim O. A. Eriqat of Smart University College for Modern Education in Hebron, together with Lau Poh Ting and Faros Faizdnor of Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation in Kuala Lumpur and Zahra Mohamed El Shlmani of Universiti Sains Malaysia, examined the period from 2019 to 2023. This window captures a turbulent stretch for global supply chains, spanning the pandemic years and their aftermath, when food producers faced intense pressure over emissions, labor practices, and governance standards. By focusing on the food sector, the authors targeted an industry whose environmental footprint, from agricultural sourcing to packaging and distribution, makes it a bellwether for corporate sustainability across emerging and developed Asian markets alike.

Methodologically, the study relied on fixed effects regression, a statistical technique well suited to panel data because it controls for time-invariant characteristics of each firm, such as entrenched corporate culture or geographic location, that might otherwise confound the results. The dependent variable was the overall ESG score of each company, drawn from the LSEG database, formerly known as Refinitiv, one of the most widely used commercial sources of sustainability ratings. The independent variables were constructed with care. The extent of Balanced Scorecard adoption was measured through a content analysis index built from annual report disclosures, capturing how thoroughly firms described performance measurement practices tied to the scorecard framework. Benchmarking exposure was coded as a binary disclosure score, reflecting whether companies reported comparing their performance against peers.

Environmental Management Accounting, the third tool under scrutiny, was proxied by the LSEG Emission Score, a measure reflecting how firms manage environmental information and emissions-related performance. EMA as a discipline involves the identification, collection, and analysis of physical and monetary information about environmental impacts, from energy use and water consumption to waste streams and greenhouse gas outputs. Unlike conventional financial accounting, which treats environmental costs as externalities or lumped overhead, EMA attempts to make those flows visible to managers so they can be priced, reduced, and optimized. The study’s finding that EMA is significantly and positively associated with ESG performance reinforces a growing consensus that what gets measured in environmental terms genuinely gets managed.

The Balanced Scorecard result carries equal weight. Developed in the early 1990s by Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the scorecard was designed to break the tyranny of purely financial metrics by adding customer, internal process, and learning-and-growth perspectives to performance evaluation. Over the decades, many organizations have extended the framework to include sustainability dimensions, embedding environmental and social targets directly into the dashboards that executives review. The Asian food sector data suggest that this integration matters: firms that disclosed richer Balanced Scorecard practices showed significantly stronger ESG outcomes. In effect, when sustainability objectives sit alongside profit targets in the same management apparatus, they are less likely to be sacrificed when trade-offs arise.

Benchmarking, by contrast, emerged from the analysis with no notable impact on ESG performance. This null result is one of the more provocative aspects of the study. Benchmarking, the practice of comparing one’s processes and outcomes against industry leaders or standards, is often promoted as a low-cost route to improvement. Yet the authors’ findings indicate that, at least as disclosed in annual reports across this sample, benchmarking activities do not meaningfully align firms with ESG goals. One plausible interpretation is that benchmarking in practice tends to focus on operational and financial comparators rather than sustainability metrics, or that firms engage in it superficially, treating peer comparison as a reporting exercise rather than a driver of structural change.

Perhaps the most striking finding concerns profitability. The study detected a negative correlation between return on assets and ESG performance, implying potential short-term trade-offs when firms invest in sustainability. This result will resonate with executives who have long argued that environmental and social investments impose costs that depress near-term returns, even as sustainability advocates counter that such investments pay off over longer horizons through risk reduction, regulatory preparedness, and reputational capital. The data from Asian food producers lend empirical texture to this debate, suggesting that in the five-year window studied, the financial burden of sustainability initiatives was real and visible in the bottom line, at least for the more profitable firms in the sample.

The moderating role of corporate ownership adds a governance dimension that elevates the study beyond a simple tool-by-tool audit. The researchers measured corporate ownership as the percentage of outstanding shares held by other corporate entities, using LSEG data. Their analysis showed that ownership exerted a positive moderating influence on the relationship between the accounting tools and ESG outcomes. In plain terms, the same accounting instruments appeared to work better, producing stronger ESG gains, when a meaningful share of the company was held by other corporations. The authors interpret this as evidence that governance structure shapes the effectiveness of ESG-related management practices, with corporate owners potentially supplying monitoring, resources, and strategic discipline that amplify the impact of measurement systems.

This ownership effect has practical implications that ripple well beyond the food aisle. Institutional investors and parent companies often position themselves as stewards of sustainability, pressing portfolio firms to adopt reporting frameworks and performance targets. The study’s results suggest that such stewardship is not merely rhetorical: the presence of corporate owners appears to convert accounting tools from passive reporting devices into active levers of ESG improvement. For policymakers in Asian markets considering mandatory ESG disclosure regimes, the finding hints that rules targeting ownership transparency and governance quality may complement disclosure mandates, since the machinery of measurement seems to function best within certain governance configurations.

The study also controlled for firm size, leverage, and age, using the natural logarithm of total assets, the ratio of total debt to total assets, and years since establishment respectively, to isolate the effects of the accounting variables from structural differences among companies. The research received no external funding, and the authors declare no competing interests. Published open access under a Creative Commons license, the work invites replication in other sectors and regions, a necessary step before its conclusions can be generalized. Still, for a region whose food industry feeds billions and whose emissions footprint continues to grow, the message is clear and actionable: the Balanced Scorecard and Environmental Management Accounting are not bureaucratic relics but strategic instruments capable of embedding sustainability into corporate decision-making, and their power depends substantially on who owns the enterprise and how seriously that owner takes its governance role.

Subject of Research: The effect of management accounting tools and corporate ownership on ESG performance in Asian publicly traded food firms

Article Title: Corporate ownership and the effectiveness of management accounting tools in enhancing ESG performance

Article References: Eriqat, I. O. A., Ting, L. P., El Shlmani, Z. M., & Faizdnor, F. (2026). Corporate ownership and the effectiveness of management accounting tools in enhancing ESG performance. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04776-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04776-4

Keywords: ESG performance, management accounting, Balanced Scorecard, Environmental Management Accounting, benchmarking, corporate ownership, corporate governance, food industry, Asia, sustainability, fixed effects regression, Discover Sustainability

The authors of the response, led by researchers affiliated with the Center for Epidemiological Studies in Health and Nutrition at the University of São Paulo, include Carlos A. Monteiro, the epidemiologist who first proposed the Nova classification in the late 2000s. Their critics contend that ultra-processed foods, or UPFs, lump together harmful and benign products in a way that makes causal inference and policy unreliable. The São Paulo team counters that this criticism rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Nova measures and how the epidemiological evidence has been generated.

Nova, they explain, does not classify foods by nutrient composition, biochemical coherence, or expected biological effects. Instead, it sorts foods into four groups according to the extent and purpose of industrial processing: fresh and minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods, and ultra-processed foods. The standard exposure metric used in most prospective studies is the dietary share of UPFs, meaning the proportion of total energy intake derived from Group 4 products. This metric, the authors argue, captures the health effects of the ultra-processed dietary pattern as a whole, reflecting the real-world displacement of the first three Nova groups, which form the basis of traditional healthy diets, by industrially formulated products.

The response draws an analogy with the Mediterranean diet to defuse the charge of heterogeneity. Foods within the Mediterranean pattern differ widely in nutrient profiles, texture, palatability, and potential health effects when considered in isolation, yet they are routinely grouped as a single dietary exposure in epidemiological studies and dietary guidelines. Variability within a category, the authors insist, does not invalidate the category. The same logic applies to ultra-processed foods: heterogeneity within the pattern does not undermine its relevance as a dietary exposure or as a target for policy.

Central to the São Paulo group’s argument is the claim that harmful attributes co-occur systematically in ultra-processed foods as a consequence of the manufacturing processes and ingredients needed to achieve their commercial purpose. These attributes include disrupted food matrices and excessive energy density that accelerate eating and increase energy intake; engineered hyper-palatable formulations that override satiety signals; additives such as emulsifiers and non-sugar sweeteners that have been linked to gut and metabolic dysfunction; and toxic industrial contaminants, including chemicals that leach from plastic packaging. Nutrient imbalances, they argue, are largely a downstream consequence of the expansion of this dietary pattern rather than its defining feature, which is why a nutrient-by-nutrient approach is insufficient to explain or reverse the global rise of diet-related chronic disease.

The authors also reject the criticism that the mechanisms linking ultra-processed foods to health outcomes are too non-specific to be meaningful. Mechanisms linking dietary patterns to health outcomes, they note, do not need to be specific: the beneficial effects of the Mediterranean diet are not discounted simply because fibre, unsaturated fats, and antioxidant compounds also appear in other dietary patterns. What matters is that harmful attributes are more prevalent and more systematically combined in ultra-processed diets than in traditional diets based on Nova Groups 1 through 3. Beyond driving nutrient imbalances and energy-dense eating, ultra-processed food intake is inversely associated with health-protective compounds such as flavonoids and phytoestrogens, and directly associated with processing-generated toxic compounds and potentially harmful additives. Soft textures, reduced chewing frequency, and faster eating rates further facilitate excess energy intake, and some researchers have argued that many ultra-processed products meet established criteria for addictive substances.

Crucially, the response points to experimental evidence that directly tests whether the health effects of ultra-processed diets can be explained away by poor nutrient profiles. Dozens of prospective studies have found associations with chronic disease even after adjusting for fibre, sodium, sugar, and saturated fat. Randomised crossover trials have shown that ultra-processed diets lead to higher energy intake and weight gain even when meals are matched for key nutrients. A recent UK trial found that non-ultra-processed diets adhering to national dietary guidelines produced better cardiometabolic outcomes than ultra-processed diets modified to meet the same criteria, a result the authors say reinforces the conclusion that reformulation does not neutralise harm.

On the charge that epidemiological studies rely on unrealistic comparisons and are confounded by other dietary components, the authors argue that the criticism inverts the logic of nutritional epidemiology. Dietary pattern analyses are not designed to isolate the effects of specific foods or nutrients; they estimate the health effects of real-world diets with high versus low ultra-processed food intake, implicitly capturing the displacement of unprocessed and minimally processed foods. Paradoxically, they contend, analyses of specific ultra-processed subgroups are more vulnerable to confounding, because they attempt to compare individual products against their non-ultra-processed counterparts within complex diets. Measurement error, meanwhile, is mitigated by validated protocols and trained raters, and its non-differential nature tends to underestimate true associations rather than fabricate false ones.

The authors concede a nuance on comparators: in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, where traditional diets based on Nova Groups 1 through 3 are no longer the default, comparisons between ready-to-consume processed and ultra-processed products may be relevant, and a more incremental policy approach starting with feasible targets may be warranted. But they stress that the Lancet Series was not designed for these settings alone. In most countries, cooked meals still predominate, and the evidence on the health effects of displacing traditional diets with ultra-processed products is particularly relevant. Early comprehensive policies targeting all ultra-processed foods, they argue, could help other nations avoid the dietary crises observed in the UK and US.

The policy implications are stark. The authors acknowledge that nutrient-focused interventions, such as trans-fat bans, sodium front-of-package warnings, and taxes on sugar-sweetened drinks, are valuable but insufficient, because they operate within the existing corporate food system and encourage reformulation without addressing the underlying production model. Removing trans fat does not eliminate other industrial contaminants; reducing salt does nothing to address energy density, soft texture, and engineered hyper-palatability; and cutting sugar often means increasing amounts of harmful additives. Several countries have already incorporated Nova into their dietary guidelines and implemented policies targeting ultra-processed foods, actions the authors say are justified by more than one hundred prospective studies, randomised trials, and mechanistic investigations. Scientific uncertainty, they conclude, should always be acknowledged, but it should not be conflated with complexity, nor should heterogeneity within a meaningful category justify inaction. In their view, the case for treating ultra-processed foods as a systemic driver of the pandemic of diet-related chronic disease is robust, and policy responses should reflect that reality.

Subject of Research: Scientific debate over the Nova classification of ultra-processed foods and the evidence linking them to human health outcomes

Article Title: Response to: Debate in relation to “Ultra‑processed foods and human health: the main thesis and the evidence”

Article References: Rezende, L. F. M., da Costa Louzada, M. L., Martinez-Steele, E., Cannon, G., Levy, R. B., Jaime, P. C., & Monteiro, C. A. (2026). Response to: Debate in relation to “Ultra‑processed foods and human health: the main thesis and the evidence”. BMC Medicine, 24(1), Article 525. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-026-05217-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12916-026-05217-9

Keywords: ultra-processed foods, Nova classification, dietary patterns, nutritional epidemiology, public health policy, chronic disease, food industry, randomised trials, food additives, Mediterranean diet, BMC Medicine, dietary guidelines

Xylanase itself is a fascinating target. The enzyme, classified as endo-1,4-beta-xylanase (EC 3.2.1.8), specifically attacks xylan, the complex polysaccharide that ranks as the second most abundant polymer in nature after cellulose and forms a major structural component of plant cell walls. By cutting the beta-1,4-glycosidic bonds threaded through xylan chains, the enzyme releases xylose and xylooligosaccharides, sugars with enormous commercial value. Xylanases are sorted by the carbohydrate-active enzymes database into glycoside hydrolase families, with GH10 and GH11 by far the best characterized; their members differ subtly in substrate specificity, catalytic mechanism, and optimal operating conditions, which in turn shapes their industrial niches. In food processing, xylanases modify the water-binding behavior of bread dough, increasing loaf volume and improving crumb structure, while in animal feed they reduce the viscosity of non-starch polysaccharides to boost nutrient absorption. Beyond food, the same enzyme pre-bleaches kraft pulp in the paper industry and helps open up lignocellulosic biomass for bioethanol production.

The enzyme is sourced from an impressively diverse biological roster. Bacterial genera such as Bacillus, Streptomyces, and Clostridium produce xylanases prized for their thermal and pH robustness — Bacillus species in particular yield thermostable variants suited to high-temperature processing. Fungal producers, including Aspergillus, Trichoderma, and Penicillium, dominate food and feed applications thanks to their efficiency at degrading complex xylans. Plants make xylanases during germination and fruit ripening, and certain herbivorous insects and termites harbor gut microbes that degrade plant cell walls with the enzyme’s help, though plant and animal sources remain marginal industrially. Recombinant DNA technology now allows xylanase genes to be cloned and expressed in hosts such as Escherichia coli and Pichia pastoris, multiplying yields far beyond what natural fermentation achieves. Even so, free enzymes remain fragile in industrial reactors, which is precisely where immobilization — attaching the enzyme to a solid support — enters the picture, a concept dating back to 1916 when charcoal-embedded invertase was first shown to hydrolyze sucrose.

Metal-organic frameworks emerged in the late 1990s as a new class of crystalline solids built from metal ions or clusters coordinated to organic linkers into extended, lattice-like networks. Their defining feature is porosity taken to an extreme: some MOFs boast surface areas exceeding 7000 square meters per gram, among the highest of any known material, offering a vast internal landscape for hosting guest molecules. Just as importantly, MOFs are programmable. By swapping metal nodes and organic struts, chemists can tune pore size, pore shape, and surface functionality with a precision unavailable to conventional carriers such as chitosan beads, alginate gels, or polyaniline films. Synthesis routes are equally varied, ranging from conventional hydrothermal heating under pressure to solvent-free mechanochemical grinding, electrochemical deposition on electrodes, and rapid microwave-assisted growth that produces highly crystalline particles in a fraction of the usual time.

For xylanase, the review highlights several standout MOF platforms. Manganese-doped ZIF-67, a zeolitic imidazolate framework, was used in a comparative study to immobilize xylanase via an in-situ method, with striking results. Encapsulated xylanase retained 85.7 percent of its activity after two hours at 70 degrees Celsius, while the free enzyme plummeted to 28.7 percent. Both the standard and manganese-doped versions kept more than 70 percent of their initial activity through eight consecutive reaction cycles, and the doped variant showed the highest substrate affinity. Functionalized UiO-66-NH2, a zirconium-based framework, served as the scaffold for co-immobilizing beta-xylosidase and endoxylanase, a pairing that maintained over 95 percent relative activity at 95 degrees Celsius in a 50 percent acetone solution and halved the enzyme’s Km value, indicating markedly improved substrate binding. A magnetic Fe3O4@polydopamine@MOF composite achieved protein loading of 80.67 milligrams per gram through multipoint interactions while tolerating both acidic and alkaline conditions.

The immobilization chemistry itself spans a spectrum of strategies, each with distinct trade-offs. Physical adsorption, the simplest approach, relies on weak van der Waals forces, hydrogen bonds, and electrostatic attraction to tether the enzyme to the MOF surface, preserving the protein’s native structure but risking gradual leaching into the product. Covalent bonding forms durable chemical links between amine, carboxyl, or thiol groups on the enzyme and complementary groups on the framework, essentially eliminating leaching at the cost of more elaborate preparation and occasional active-site interference. In-situ encapsulation is arguably the most elegant: enzyme molecules are trapped inside the growing MOF crystal as it assembles around them, creating a protective environment from which escape is nearly impossible. Covalent cross-linking with bifunctional reagents builds a stable enzyme network throughout the pores and across the surface, boosting resistance to harsh conditions. In one demonstration, beta-xylosidase cross-linked onto FeSO4-chitosan-encapsulated MOF microparticles retained 40 percent activity after ten reuse cycles and functioned at temperatures five degrees higher than the free protein, with double the activity at 70 degrees.

Real-world food applications are already validating the concept. A xylanase from a novel Bacillus pumilus strain, immobilized on the copper-based framework Cu-BTC, clarified pineapple and pomegranate juices with enhanced catalytic efficiency and remarkable durability, retaining 61 percent of its activity after 21 cycles. In apple juice trials, Xyl@ZIF-67 raised juice transmittance from 65.61 to 94.73 percent within an hour of treatment, while the manganese-doped version lifted it from 77.80 to 84.13 percent, simultaneously increasing reducing sugar content. Xylooligosaccharide production — a booming market for prebiotic ingredients that selectively nourish beneficial Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli in the human gut — has proven equally receptive. The magnetic Fe3O4@PDA@MOF-xylanase system converted corncob xylan into xylooligosaccharides at a 23 percent yield, outperforming the free enzyme by a factor of 1.15, while a green-synthesized Xy-Cu-BTC composite achieved an 87.4 percent conversion yield, boosting xylopentose output and suppressing unwanted xylose formation to just 0.88 percent of the product mix.

Challenges remain, and the review does not gloss over them. Leaching persists whenever weak non-covalent interactions are disrupted by shifts in pH, ionic strength, or temperature. Mass-transfer limitations loom large because xylan is a bulky, high-molecular-weight polymer; if MOF pore apertures are too narrow, substrate chains simply cannot reach the immobilized active sites, dragging down reaction rates compared with free enzyme. Aqueous stability is a further concern, as water molecules can competitively displace organic linkers from metal centers, collapsing some frameworks — a problem researchers counter by turning to chemically robust series such as ZIF and MIL frameworks, which simultaneously act as a molecular corset restricting protein unfolding. Food safety adds a final layer of scrutiny: frameworks built from toxic metals such as chromium or cobalt risk contaminating food matrices, so current research favors biocompatible MOFs assembled from iron, zinc, or calcium nodes with Generally Recognized as Safe ligands such as amino acids or citric acid, validated by rigorous leaching assays in food-simulating solvents.

The path forward, the review concludes, lies in hierarchical pore engineering that integrates mesopores large enough for xylan polymers, a transition to aqueous green synthesis routes, and continuous-flow biocatalysis in packed-bed reactors for pulp, bioethanol, and food production. The economics, too, must balance out: MOF supports cost more upfront than silica or chitosan, a premium justified only if exceptional reusability and extended enzyme half-life reduce replacement frequency and simplify downstream recovery. With the immobilized enzyme market projected to reach USD 27.29 billion by 2031 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.45 percent, the commercial incentive to solve these problems is unmistakable. If MOF-encapsulated xylanase delivers on its laboratory promise at industrial scale, the crystal cages now being grown around this humble enzyme could quietly reshape how the world’s food — from breakfast juice to prebiotic supplements — is made.

Subject of Research: Metal-organic framework composites for xylanase enzyme immobilization and their applications in the food industry

Article Title: Metal organic framework composites for xylanase immobilization and their applications in food industry

Article References: Jana, U. K. (2026). Metal organic framework composites for xylanase immobilization and their applications in food industry. Discover Industrial Chemistry and Materials, 1(1), Article 9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44508-026-00011-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44508-026-00011-0

Keywords: metal-organic frameworks, xylanase, enzyme immobilization, biocatalysis, xylooligosaccharides, fruit juice clarification, ZIF-67, UiO-66-NH2, food safety, prebiotics, nanobiotechnology, food industry