Are sustainable companies less risky and more profitable?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were significant differences in accounting indicators when comparing sustainable enterprises to other similar companies that are not considered as sustainable. The Corporate Sustainability Index of BM (São Paulo Stock, Commodities and Futures Exchange) was the criterion selected to break down the samples into sustainable and non-sustainable enterprises. The accounting indicators were separated into two kinds: risk (dividend payout, percentage growth of assets, financial leverage, current liquidity, asset size, variability of earnings, and accounting beta) and return (ROA, ROE, asset turnover, and net margin). We individually analyzed the companies in the energy sector, followed by those in the banking sector, as well as the entire ISE portfolio as of 2008/2009, including all the sectors. Mann-Whitney tests were performed in order to verify the difference of the means between the groups (ISE and non-ISE). The results, considering the method chosen and the time span covered by the study, indicate that there are no differences between sustainable companies and the others, when they are assessed by the accounting indicators used here.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nunes,Tânia Cristina Silva, Nova,Silvia Casa, Cornacchione,Edgard, Garcia,Solange
Format: Digital revista
Language:English
Published: Departamento de Administração da Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo 2012
Online Access:http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0080-21072012000300007
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!