Socioenvironmental Responsibility Index of Brazilian Corporations

This paper presents the concept of social responsibility as an input for the creation of an index of socioenvironmental responsibility (IRES) of Brazilian corporations constructed on the basis of information available in their Social Reports. It raises three questions: Is there a correlation between the IRES of a certain year and the IRES of another year? Do firms with high IRES marks in a given year also show good performance the following year? Was there progress from 2001 to 2008 in the average values of the indicators involved in the preparation of the IRES? We collected data on the Social Reports of 349 firms. There was a positive correlation in the behavior of these companies’ IRES. It appears that companies with high IRES levels in one year had high IRES levels the following year. Those with low IRES achievements in a year remained low achievers the following year.