The independent effects of environmental, social and governance initiatives on the performance of UK firms

Date

2012

Authors

Humphrey, Jacquelyn
Lee, Darren D
Shen, Yaokan

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

University of New South Wales

Abstract

We investigate the effect of environmental, social and governance factors on the financial performance of UK firms. We examine the three factors separately to disentangle the relation of each with performance. We find no difference in the performance of firms with high or low environmental, social or governance rankings. The firms also do not differ in their systematic risks, book-to-market ratios or momentum exposures. However, high-rated firms are consistently larger. Our findings demonstrate that UK investors can incorporate environmental, social or governance criteria into their investment strategies without incurring any significant cost (or benefit) in terms of risk or return.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: Best of Sector; corporate social performance; environment; governance; social; sustainability; UK

Citation

Source

Australian Journal of Management

Type

Journal article

Book Title

Entity type

Access Statement

License Rights

Restricted until

2037-12-31