BRASIL E SUSTENTABILIDADE: UM ESTUDO LONGITUDINAL DAS CARACTERÍSTICAS ENDÓGENAS DAS COMPANHIAS FRENTE AO SEU NÍVEL DE DISCLOSURE, À LUZ DA DIMENSÃO AMBIENTAL

Abstract

Currently, companies demand to associate their interest in expanding and earning profits, to interact with the environment, and their stakeholders are required to be more transparent in their corporate actions. Of this interest have the practice of environmental disclosure, defined as a set of methods used by the entities to disclose their actions with nature, aiming to present what and how the company is behaving in relation to natural resources. This attitude is indispensable to evidence the moral commitment to society and the responsibility for sustainable development, thus increasing the reliability of its practices. Thus, the present dissertation aims to identify the endogenous characteristics of companies that explain the level of evidence of environmental issues. For this purpose, where analyzed the 2010 and 2015 Sustainability Reports of 52 companies, considered the largest in net sales volume, were analyzed by Exame Magazine - Biggest and Best Edition 2016. In order to explain the environmental disclosure, nine hypotheses were formulated and tested from the Regression Analysis with panel data, using the Random Effects Model. These hypotheses include size, performance, indebtedness, corporate governance, pollution potential, ISE's portfolio, share control, type of control and the opening of capital. The results show that in the period under investigation, companies showed a total of 4,860 environment - related sentences, of which 2,432 in 2010 and 2,428 in 2015. Regarding the categories under analysis, it was found that Other Environmental Information (25.5%) and Environmental Policies (23.9%) had higher disclosure rates. With optics the subcategories, the following stand out: Sustainability and / or Sustainable Development (13.8%) and Statement of current and future policies, practices and actions (9.4%). The Panel Regression Analysis showed that the variables Size (H1), Performance (H2), Level of Indebtedness (H3) and Type of Control (H8) were confirmed significant at the significance level of 1%, that is, they have strong Influence at the level of environmental disclosure practiced by the companies investigated. It is concluded that the results of the research corroborate with the Theory of Disclosure, and ratify the findings of other studies related to the subject.