ESG, Competitive advantage and financial performances: a preliminary research

In the last few decades, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance has emerged as an important aspect for developing sustainable strategies that affect overall firm performance (Eccles and Serafeim, 2013). Also for automotive industry, sustainability has become a key competence to fight against climate change, resource efficiency and environmental degradation. In this paper, we present preliminary findings of a research focused on the effect of a responsible and ethical behaviour on the financial performance of automotive companies. The aim of this paper is to investigate on the impact of each singular E-S-G dimensions on financial performance, referring to a sample of 28 firms from the three leading automotive manufacturing clusters (Japan, United States and Europe). Preliminary results show that there is a strong positive relationship between: - Governance factor and firm market value (Enterprise value), and - Environmental factor and firm market value (Enterprise value). Moreover, there is a moderate positive relationship between: - Governance factor and market performance (Book Value per Share and Leverage), and - Environmental factor and market performance (Book Value per Share and Leverage). These are preliminary results of a more complex research. Limitations are linked to the small sample and with the firms’ heterogeneity. Moreover, in a future research we wants to analyse the relationship between an ESG indicator and economic and financial performances.