Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

In an environment, where sustainability issues have gained substantial importance over the past years, the trend has reached companies and impacted the development of non-financial reporting. The results on how it affects companies with regards to their financial performance, however, have been diverse. Explanations for these mixed outcomes can be found in varying interpretations of non-financial reporting and a broad range of regulations in different countries. This thesis takes the introduction of the Directive 2014/95/EU as a reason to investigate, whether an increase in standardization due to mandatory reporting, based on established guidelines, improves the potential for regression analysis on a European level. In addition, it considers that higher standardization and comparability might raise awareness and expectations of stakeholders, which may lead to companies having to focus more on the quality of their sustainability reports. An examination of sources, that stakeholders use to establish an idea of a report’s quality, showed an orientation towards external assurance statements and recommended frameworks. Hence, the reporting quality is measured by the existence of assurance, as well as the application of one of the most approved guidelines from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). In addition, the established multivariate regression model controls for size, leverage, and takes year dummy variables in account, in order to search for potential temporary effects. The panel data analysis on companies from the STOXX Europe Sustainability Index reveals a slightly positive correlation between external assurance and the market-to-book-ratio (MTBV). The fact that other variables, especially GRI, remained statistically insignificant might indicate that the EU-directive was only a first step towards sufficient standardization of sustainability reporting, and that there might still be large gaps in the understanding of non-financial disclosure. Nevertheless, this thesis extends previous literature, in that it considers the most recent regulatory changes on a supranational level. Furthermore, it gives managerial implications with respect to investments in external assurance, seeming to have a positive influence on financial performance, despite the potential risk of high initial costs. Eventually, these results lead to the question of how the dynamic regulatory environment and increasing standardization will change the corporate environment in the long-run, which can be subject to future studies.

Sustainability --- GRI --- ESG --- Reporting --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Comptabilité & audit

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Our consumption behaviors have been destroying the planet for years. In the current climate emergency, solutions must be quickly put in place. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), measured through the ESG score, appears as a way out in the financial sector. The growing interest in the subject of CSR raises questions about the factors that can influence investment in it and consequently the ESG score. Ownership seems to be a possible factor influencing decisions within companies. Could shareholder structure influence the social engagement of firms ? The purpose of this study is to reveal a potential impact of ownership structure on ESG scores using a sample of 575 European companies between 2011 and 2020.
Our results suggest that the power held by the largest shareholder, measured by the percentage of capital owned, does indeed have an impact on the ESG score. This shareholder has in fact the most power in the decisions that will be taken. Its investment desires therefore have an impact on the company's policy. However, the effect of ownership concentration on CSR should not, be analyzed individually. We discovered that the influence of the major shareholder on these investments depended not only on his identity but also on the country studied. We therefore believe that a general effect cannot be put forward when studying the relationship between ownership concentration and ESG score. The context of this concentration is important and must be considered to draw any conclusions.
Diverging outcomes are mainly due to the characteristics and motivations of investors, which also vary from one country to another. By dividing shareholders into five groups (family, institutional investor, government, corporate and individual), we can presume their incentives towards CSR. Our results show that when the State is the largest owner, it has a positive effect on the ESG score, whereas companies and individuals have a negative impact if they are the largest owners. Family and institutional investors have not provided clear results regarding their presence as major shareholder. We believe that for the first, this is due to contradictory motivations concerning CSR. For the latter, we believe that a distinction must be made between short-term and long-term investment horizons.
We were not able to measure whether country played a significant role in ESG score variations, due to the limitations of our methodology. However, we did find out that ownership concentration had a different impact across countries. This change of impact concerning the ownership structure was still poorly covered in the previous papers and we believe that it could bring an interesting contribution to the literature. 
This study provides economic and political agents with a new and updated vision in understanding the involvement of companies in CSR, by showing the relevance of considering the heterogeneity of shareholders when considering the topic.

ESG --- RSE --- Actionnariat --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Finance

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This book is not a "how to" manual to propose yet another ESG frame- work. It focuses on the "what" and the "why" of the matter, in order toremove ambiguities, and presents the role of emerging technologies tomanage ESG data and provide better understanding through transpar-ency and accountability. It takes the perspective of a company seeking to attract ESG investments and become compliant with ESG regulatory requirements.

Environmental management. --- Environmental impact analysis. --- Risk management. --- Environmental sciences --- Social aspects. --- ESG. --- Environmental social governance. --- Sustainability. --- UN sustainable development goals. --- Cybersecurity. --- Data security. --- Circular economy. --- ESG data. --- Climate tech. --- Sustainable funds. --- Sustainable investment. --- ESG standards. --- Greenwashing.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Environmental, social and governance concerns are gaining ground recently and the growing amount of available data enables investors to integrate these issues in their investment strategies. Since a few years, the popularity of these ESG criteria are translated in a growing number of assets under management incorporating ESG criteria in Europe and in the rest of the world. With regard to the growing popularity amongst investors, research analysed the relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance and found a weak but positive relationship between both aspects of the firm.
This thesis will try to contribute to the existing literature by analysing the relationship between CSP and CFP in European companies over the period 2007-2015. In order to perform the analysis, the Thomson-Reuters ASSET-4 database will be used as they provide a complete set of ESG data. The methodology that will be used consists of the repartition of all the stocks with ESG coverage in portfolios on the basis of their ESG score. Thereafter, the relationship will be analysed using least square regression analysis.
The findings of this paper indicates that European markets are rewarding moderate levels of corporate social performance better than low and high levels of ESG. The uncertainty over the ability of firms to combine both projects to improve their societal impact and future growth seems to prevent markets from rewarding top performers. The knowledge of the optimal level of corporate social performance permitted the creation of an investment strategy. From an accounting point of view, this thesis shows that firms with high levels of ESG are able to achieve a return on equity that is three times higher than companies with very low levels of ESG.

ESG, CSP, Environmental social and governance, Corporate Social Performance --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Finance

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Increase of the popularity of ESG criteria has helped value-driven investors evaluate the responsibility level of potential investments. However, despite a significant amount of studies on the subject, it is still unclear whether Socially Responsible Investment can lead to positive abnormal returns or not. 
This thesis will contribute to the literature by trying to determine if a positive link can be found on the European market over the period 2004-2018. The Thomson Reuters Eikon database will be used to retrieve various ESG- and financial data for the 1100 companies analyzed. These firms will then be classified into high and low portfolios with different cut-off levels. The rankings are based on four different screening methods: ESG, individual Environmental, Social and Governance scores, Best-In-Class, and ESG-score per country. The performance of these portfolios will then be evaluated by using the Fama-French 5 factors (2015), without and with the momentum factor. 
The results of the strategy taking a long position in high ESG-rated portfolios and a short position in low ESG-rated portfolios brings significant negative returns. The same is observed when the BIC and Social pillar screening methods are adopted. The only exception arises when using Environmental screen on a limited number of companies, which leads to significant positive abnormal returns. Results also show significant differences between countries, inducing that there exists a country-factor influencing SRI performance. However, these results must be interpreted carefully as they are only valid for the database hereinabove. Moreover, despite an improvement of the availability of ESG-data, there is still a significant number of companies that cannot be included in portfolios because of missing data.

ISR --- ESG --- Fama-French 5 facteurs --- SRI --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Finance