Do irresponsible corporate activities prevent membership in sustainable stock indices? The case of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index world

Abstract

[EN] The study analyses the real-life results from the DJSI World selection process and investigates whether companies are treated differently because of sectoral or geographical diversification needs of the index; furthermore, the question whether its methodology penalises ESG-related irresponsible corporate activities is investigated. The last is an important issue, as it is not unusual to find constituents of sustainable indices implicated in corporate scandals. This is a striking fact, contradicting the ethical and sustainable imperative such companies are supposed to comply with. The authors scrutinise data from a data panel containing 2872 firms between 2011 and 2016 and estimate a variety of logit models. The empirical evidence indicates that ESG-related controversies affect the probability to be included in the DJSI World. Surprisingly, whilst controversy-implicated companies which are already index members were penalised, the likelihood of selection for those companies which have not been selected for the index yet, remained unchanged.