A critical review of the Corporate Governance dimension in the Sustainability Indexes questionnaires

Abstract

The global sustainability indices most used by companies (FTSE4Good, CDP, MSCI, Goldman Sachs, SUSTAINALYTICS, DJSI) dedicate part of their analysis to corporate governance aspects, as the correlation between the governance dimension and the success of sustainability has been empirical demonstrated. Despite this unanimity on including governance aspects, the indices do not share a common methodology, questionnaire or objectives. It is, therefore, difficult to obtain an overall vision of what aspects relating to corporate governance have greater impact on sustainability. The opportunity for research lies in conducting a critical review of the perspective that sustainability indices currently offer on the corporate governance dimension in order to find out, due to the absence of a common methodology, if questions are being asked on all of the variables that should be considered, or if some are being omitted.

Keywords

• Sustainability
• CSR
• corporate governance
• sustainability indexes
• board of directors