CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE LEVELS: DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS APPLICATION

Abstract

The study poses to investigate the relationship between the level of environmental disclosure and economic performance of open capital companies as classified by the Você S/A – As Melhores Empresas para Você Trabalhar (The Best Companies to Work) guide. A descriptive study, employing a quantitative approach, was conducted via documental analysis of financial statements of the therein featured, 21 open capital companies. Survey results evidence that: a) in the environmental disclosure categorization, 680 data entries were found, ranging from 99 deemed complete information, 126 as incomplete and 455 absent; b) in terms of environmental disclosure score levels, 55% of the companies were graded as unsatisfactory, 35% regular and 9% good; and c) the relationship between corporate environmental disclosure levels and economic performance revealed bleak correlation. Thus, once employing the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology, the study concludes that not all companies that presented higher environmental information disclosure levels attained efficient economic performance.