Financial disclosure and social environmental responsibility: An empirical study on the Brazilian market

Resumen

The objective of this paper was to analyse the level of disclosure of social and environmental informa­tion of the sectors and companies listed on the Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI) of the BM&FBoves­pa. Based on accounting and finance theories, it was performed a quantitative and qualitative empirical study through the content analysis, according to the participation of companies by sector, sub-sector and business segment on the CSI, totalling 25,948 items from 202 companies observations. The results indi­cate that (i) there is no standardization in the analysed information; (ii) there are different levels of social and environmental disclosure among companies and industries; (iii) companies say that they are more socially and environmentally responsible than, in fact, they are – which could be considered, to a certain extent, as a form of ‘green washing’; (iv) companies have mostly positive and declarative information; (v) improving the level and amount of corporate information may be influenced by the provisions of the regulatory bodies; and (vi) the voluntary disclosure of environmental information is probably not motivat­ed by the search for transparency and good corporate governance practices, but as an attempt to increase credibility and improve corporate image.