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Investigating consistency of judgement across sustainability analyst organizations

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  • Martin Hedesström
  • Ulrika Lundqvist
  • Anders Biel

Abstract

We compare seven major European and North American sustainability analyst organizations on how they rank-order the same set of companies with regards to environmental performance. We also compare the analyst organizations' environmental rating schemes with regards to which evaluation criteria they include. Two industries are investigated: automobile and paper/forestry. Although there is fairly broad consensus on which automobile companies have the worst environmental performance, there is considerable disagreement about best‐performers. The pattern is less clear for paper/forestry companies. With some notable exceptions, and for both industries, all rating schemes contain evaluation criteria targeting those aspects of company performance associated, according to life‐cycle assessments, with the largest potential environmental impact. There are, however, significant divergences as to how many, and which, criteria of medium to low relevance are applied. Sustainability analyst organizations should make explicit to investors and evaluated companies on which theoretical and empirical grounds environmental evaluation criteria are selected. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Hedesström & Ulrika Lundqvist & Anders Biel, 2011. "Investigating consistency of judgement across sustainability analyst organizations," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 119-134, March/Apr.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:19:y:2011:i:2:p:119-134
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/sd.511
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Olivier Boiral & David Talbot & Marie‐Christine Brotherton, 2020. "Measuring sustainability risks: A rational myth?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2557-2571, September.
    2. Hedesström, Martin & Andersson, Maria & Gärling, Tommy & Biel, Anders, 2012. "Stock investors’ preference for short-term vs. long-term bonuses," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 137-142.
    3. Luluk Widyawati, 2021. "Measurement concerns and agreement of environmental social governance ratings," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1589-1623, April.
    4. Samuel Drempetic & Christian Klein & Bernhard Zwergel, 2020. "The Influence of Firm Size on the ESG Score: Corporate Sustainability Ratings Under Review," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 167(2), pages 333-360, November.
    5. Natalia Semenova & Lars Hassel, 2015. "On the Validity of Environmental Performance Metrics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 249-258, December.
    6. Frederic Läger & Yassin Denis Bouzzine & Rainer Lueg, 2022. "The relationship between firm complexity and corporate social responsibility: International evidence from 2010–2019," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 549-560, May.

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