Measurement of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review of Corporate Sustainability Indexes, Rankings and Ratings

Companies are currently changing their traditional role in society and transforming it into a proactive role in which their operations generate social and environmental positive impacts. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has evolved from simple philanthropy to a more theoretical concept with a n...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Diez-Cañamero, Borja, Bishara, Tania, Otegi Olaso, José Ramón, Mínguez Gabiña, Rikardo, Fernández, José María
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/42456
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/42456
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Socially Responsible Investment (SRI)
Environment, Social and Governance Criterion (ESG)
Stakeholder Theory
sustainability indexes
sustainability rankings
sustainability ratings
ESG performance
sustainability performance
corporate sustainable system
Descripción
Sumario:Companies are currently changing their traditional role in society and transforming it into a proactive role in which their operations generate social and environmental positive impacts. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has evolved from simple philanthropy to a more theoretical concept with a new corporate philosophy that takes all the interests of all stakeholders into consideration. The financial market is pushing the development of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI), which has led to the rise of Corporate Sustainability Systems (CSS). These CSSs are tools that rate corporate performance on sustainability. However, they constitute a chaotic universe, with instruments of different nature. This paper identifies and groups the common characteristics of the CSSs into three different typologies: Indexes, Rankings and Ratings. Despite this classification, and although the fundamental pillar of CSR is the “Stakeholder Theory”, CSSs are still not ideal tools to be used by all stakeholders. From the magma of CSSs, this article identifies and describes, through a comparative analysis, those which best comply with the “Stakeholder Theory”. This paper facilitates the work of researchers and stakeholders by exposing the differential characteristics of the most important CSSs.