Corporate social performance and financial performance

The debate on whether corporate social performance and financial performance are substitutes or complements has been long and unresolved. The evidence presented in this paper demonstrates that there are clear associations between measures of corporate environmental, social and governance performance and financial characteristics and, moreover, that they are sensitive to industry classification. There is no evidence of trade-offs between environmental, social and governance performance and shareholder wealth, in terms of either risk or return. For firms in the banking, diversified financials, insurance and telecommunications industries high governance performance is strongly related to superior financial performance.