Analysis of the relationship between social and environmental investment and inclusion of companies in corporate sustainability index of BM&FBOVESPA

Abstract

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8077.2012v14n32p141

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between social and environmental investments and the inclusion of companies in the Corporate Sustainability Index of BM&FBOVESPA, by applying logistic regression. For this, we analyzed information relating to internal and external social and environmental investments, from the social balance of companies.The sample consisted of companies eligible for inclusion in the portfolio ISE in the period of December 2009 to December 2010. According to the results, we can conclude that there is a relationship between environmental investments and entry of firms in the portfolio ISE of BM&FBOVESPA, showing that investment made and evidenced in social and environmental issues is a sign of real commitment to social responsibility and sustainability and not simply a form of accountability of the funds invested. As the variables used, internal social investment (II), External (IE) and environmental (IA), we found that IE is the best proxy to explain this relationship. In other words, the results suggest that companies that invest resources in favor of community, either voluntarily or through taxes, which is or should be a resource applied in society, has more chances of entering the ISE portfolio composition.