Corporate sustainability is essential to long-term corporate success and for ensuring markets deliver value across society, and despite its importance, there is no clear consensus as to whether the financial performance of companies relates to their sustainability performance. The objectives of this study are to verify whether the sustainability reporting quality would affect corporate financial performance (CFP) among the firms listed on Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE) and to examine the quality of information disclosed in their sustainability reports (SR). The sample is composed of all firms listed on ISE for the period 2008 to 2014. This study considered accounting and market-based indicators and control variables. There is no clear consensus as to whether the financial performance of companies listed in sustainability indices relates to their sustainability performance. The main findings are as follows: There is no association between accounting and market-based variables and the reporting quality, and although the quality disclosure is improving throughout the years studied, the scores are still low. This is also true in the three dimensions of sustainability. We are not aware of studies examining the relationship between CFP and sustainability reporting quality, and this is the main contribution.

The objective of this research is to examine the quality of information disclosed from a sample of Brazilian listed companies, using a multidimensional construct based on economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability. The research design combines both quantitative and qualitative methods. The qualitative approach is used in the content analysis procedure and the quantitative is employed for statistical analysis. The target population consists of top 36 sustainable companies (ISE) and 24 with corporate governance practices (NM) in 2011. We find that 37% of the companies achieved score above 0.5; 30% between 0.26 and 0.5 and 33% scored below 0.25, being score zero the worst and one the best score. The best company scored 0.896 and the worst of the 60 companies scored 0.0167. Overall our statistical results confirm that ISE companies tend to disclose more information and in a more adequate way than NM, and in general, the companies are reporting the content in all the three dimensions with same quality level. Furthermore, companies from Infrastructure sector present better quality content reported when compared to Service companies. We conclude that a good sustainability report is directly related to the good content in all the tree dimensions, regardless the economic sector and these reports still have a big room for improvement, which echoes within the literature analyzed. Companies need to disclose their information in a more integrated way, addressing sustainability issues under the scope of business strategy.

The objective of this research is to verify the level of adherence to the GRI indicators that Brazilian companies listed in ISE and those listed in FTSE4Good are using in their 2011 sustainability reports and what are the differences between these two groups. The research design combines both quantitative and qualitative methods. The target population consists of 70 companies, 35 from ISE and 35 from FTSE4Good. Content analysis was used to analyze the indicators disclosed in the reports and the information presented was classified in three categories of scoring according to its level of disclosure. On average, ISE companies scored 0,5867 and FTSE4Good scored 0,4451. The best company scored 0,924 and the worst of 70 companies scored 0,105. Overall, our statistical results show that ISE companies are more adherent to the GRI indicators than FTSE4Good companies, mainly in the economic and social dimensions. Yet, the companies spay similar attention in all 3 dimensions, regardless of economic sector and index. We can say that good sustainability reports showing deeper ISSN 1941-899X 2014 www.macrothink.org/jmr 28 sustainability concerns and business practices related are acting accordingly to the Stakeholder and Legitimacy theories, regardless of their level of adherence to GRI Journal of Management Research

The study proposes to develop a reference model of sustainability disclosure based on the models and requirements of four sustainability indexes -Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Corporate Sustainability Index ISE, Frankfurt STOXX and Financial Times FTSE ESG. The approach employed to develop the model is a qualitative analysis of the complementarity among the Stock indexes above mentioned alongside a literature review on sustainability disclosure frameworks. There is no consensus around what should be measured and how. Yet, there is no study in the literature that has ever discussed the models of the sustainability stock indexes and the respective data required in each one of them or compared these models and their requirements. The present study attempts to fulfill this gap by examining the initiatives ISSN 1941-899X 2016 www.macrothink.org/jmr 45 and requirements of four prominent sustainability indexes. This study contributes to the sustainability responsible investment literature. The inclusion of a firm in a sustainability index can be perceived as a positive signal by investors and this can be explained by signaling theory. This analysis can help investors and/or socially responsible fund managers to screen the stocks against this reference model and determine those firms that are more adherent to it. Journal of Management Research