Socio environmental responsibility practices and organizational performance in public companies

Abstract

Purpose: Analyze the relationship between socio-environmental responsibility practices in the economic and financial performance of companies listed in [B3]. Methodology: Social and environmental information found in the annual sustainability reports published in accordance with the GRI 4 (Global Reporting Initiative) standard were used. For economic performance, the metrics EBITDA and ROA were considered, while for financial performance, market-to-book and Tobin's Q were used, collected on the Economática® platform. Binomial logistic regression was used to evaluate 220 observations corresponding to the period from 2014 to 2018. Results: It was not possible to verify the relationship between the disclosure of socio-environmental practices on economic performance, measured by the companies' accounting result variables. However, it suggests that there is a negative influence of the disclosure of information on socio-environmental practices on the financial performance measured by market variables. Study Contributions: Despite the demands made by the set of stakeholders on companies for the practice of socioenvironmental actions, the market does not favorably recognize the organizational effort. The results point to indications that investors may consider organizational investments in socioenvironmental practices as undesirable.