Sustainable value creation: coherence of corporate social responsibility and performance of socially responsible investment funds

Abstract

This article analyses the coherence of corporate social responsibility of companies and the performance of socially responsible funds, as such companies include elements of corporate social responsibility in their investment strategies and the funds tend to include more socially responsible companies in their portfolio. In addition, the ability of these variables to create sustainable value is considered. A methodology for the evaluation of sustainable performance of socially responsible investment funds is proposed in the article. The application of the proposed methodology reveals the importance of being responsible from the social and ecological standpoints and provides evidence of the existence of a relationship between these variables and value creation. The study shows that there exists a relationship between the sustainable performance of companies and the financial results of socially responsible investment funds. The investigation has proven that variables such as intellectual capital, social and ecological performances of companies have a major impact on the performances of socially responsible investment funds. It has been noticed that the method is sensitive to the availability of social and ecological performance information, which is represented by companies in their sustainability reports.