Corporate Sustainability and the Financial Implications for the European Basic Materials Industry

Sammanfattning: In this thesis we investigate the relationship between sustainable performance and firm performance within the basic materials industry. Specifically, and in line with prior studies, we demonstrate a significant, negative relationship between sustainable performance, (using Thomson Reuters Asset4 ESG-index) and financial firm performance (return on assets and Tobin’s q) for a panel data sample between 2003 and 2013 of 94 European basic materials firms. Like many previous researchers, we find inconclusive results when testing whether this relationship is linear or non-linear. We discuss the implications of these findings.