Investimento em ESG e eficiência econômica-financeira: uma abordagem DEA para o Setor Elétrico Brasileiro entre 2017 e 2021

Abstract

Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) factors have been gaining relevance over the last few years in the corporate world. The concern with extra financial factors is the subject of discussion mainly with regard to their contribution or not to the financial success of companies. The present study aims to analyze companies in the Brazilian electricity sector in order to convert their financial indicators of Gross Margin, Operating Margin, Net Margin and Turnover of Assets into results of Return on Equity and Return on Assets when combined with a sustainability factor in the analysis. For this, the Data Envelopment Analysis method was used in order to establish a company efficiency ranking for the years 2017 to 2021. The three best positioned companies in terms of efficiency were: Cemig, CPFL Energia and Neoenergia. In addition, the stock returns of the three most efficient companies were compared with the three companies with the highest levels of sustainability in the period, through hypothetical portfolios, to verify whether the ESG can be used, as a unique factir, for decision making during the investors' decision. It was found that the most efficient companies obtained higher returns in the period to the detriment of the most sustainable ones, which shows that analyzing only the ESG practices of companies will not guarantee better results for investors.