The impact of ESG scores and non-financial reporting on the financial performance of public companies in the Eu

• Autor(a) principal: Winther, Alexandra Rose-Marie
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/123860
• topic: Sustainability; Sustainable finance; Esg; Financial performance; Non-financial; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Sustainability has grown in popularity over the past few years due to the environmental and social challenges we are currently facing. With the raised awareness regarding sustainability and the new trend of sustainable investing, stakeholders and investors incorporate sustainability in their investment strategies. Company performance is now not only measured by financial performance but sometimes more importantly, non-financial performance. The European Commission introduced the law on non-financial reporting in an attempt to increase transparency and aid interested parties in evaluating companies not only based on their financial performance. Since companies are now required to disclose information about their non-financial activities, it is easier to actually see what companies do to contribute to a sustainable future. One of the measurements used to value non-financial performance is the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) score. This paper investigates the relationship between non-financial reporting and ESG scores, and the financial performance of public companies in the EU. To evaluate this, two difference-in-differences regression models were performed on a sample of 3158 public companies in the EU from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database. Using average stock prices as a measurement of financial performance, this variable was regressed against reporting vs not reporting on non-financial information as well as high vs low ESG scores. The results obtained conclude a significantly positive relationship between average stock prices and the independent variables of interest. Based on these results, this paper can conclude a positive relationship between reporting non-financial information and ESG scores, and financial performance.