Igor Álvarez

Sustainable supply chain and company performance

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the link between a sustainable supply chain and companies’ financial performance (FP) and provide empirical evidence about the relationship between these two constructs. This link is an important, but still unclear, subject. Design/methodology/approach – Multivariate measures of sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP are used for Granger causality tests on a large, diverse sample of 3,900 companies in a time frame of eight years (2004-2011). Findings – Results indicate general bidirectional causality between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ margins and revenue. However, the link between firms’ profitability and sustainable supply chain performance is unidirectional. In addition, the recent financial crisis altered this link between the studied constructs. Finally, a wide diversity in relationship patterns between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP emerges when the full sample is divided into different geographi...

Exploring Sustainability in Spanish Companies

This chapter focuses on the analysis of the International Corporate Sustainability Barometer (ICSB) results in Spain, which is the fourteenth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP. A total of 23 Spanish listed companies have participated in the survey, representing about 4.9 % of the total number of companies involved in the ICSB project. Although the results show that Spanish companies carry out similar sustainability practices to those observed on international average, there are three main differences that should be highlighted. Firstly, environmental aspects are the main sustainability issues for Spanish companies. Secondly, a strong link is observed between sustainability issues and the core business of the Spanish companies. Thirdly, the main driver for the corporate social responsibility and sustainability performance of Spanish companies seems to be the legitimation of their activities. Evidence for this can be found with regard to corporate motivation (e.g. the strong influence of society-oriented stakeholders), implementation of sustainability management issues (which is strongly related to stakeholder demands) and use of sustainability reporting tools which are widely implemented by Spanish companies.

Corporate Carbon and Climate Change Accounting: Application, Developments and Issues

While climate change policies and negotiations are developing and scientist are urging for more action, in most countries progress remains on a low level and the macro figures indicate that climate change becomes even more critical. As a reaction to this, some advanced business leaders have initiated various actions and projects with their companies, and various regulations have been introduced by governments with varying levels of effectiveness. In this context of a mix of international initiatives, media attention, customer irritation, diverse regulatory changes and partial political lethargy, ever more companies are challenged to identify and reduce their exposure to climate change issues. Whereas the reduction of climate change emissions is an important topic, it has also become obvious that climate change is not just a future risk but is already happening. This invokes adaptation activities in addition to mitigation strategies and measures. A basic requirement to design the corporate climate strategy is the knowledge about the company’s exposure as well as about options, effects and costs of emission reductions and adaptation measures. This is where climate change accounting as a specific kind of environmental management accounting comes into play. This introductory section outlines core questions and approaches.

Carbon Accounting: A Review of the Existing Models, Principles and Practical Applications

The Kyoto Protocol has opened up an international debate about the appearance of different regulations which focus on carbon accounting and reporting. Specifically, the Kyoto Protocol established that the Conference of the Parties shall define the relevant principles, models, rules and guidelines, in particular for verification, reporting and accountability for carbon allowances. As a consequence, many companies remain confused as to the appropriate carbon accounting model. Due to the existing controversies on the topic, the aim of the present work is twofold. Firstly, and from a macroeconomic point of view, this work attempts to analyse the different carbon accounting regulations existing at the international level. Secondly, and from a firm level, describe the main practical carbon accounting principles and applications in different industries. Main results reveal the existence of different approaches at the corporate level in the international context about carbon accounting and reporting. This has several implications from a company point of view, being one of the most important the impact of the carbon accounting model choice on companies’ financial performance.

Evolución de la emisión de memorias de sostenibilidad conforme al modelo GRI

A lo largo de los ultimos anos han florecido en el ambito empresarial toda una serie de iniciativas relacionadas con la responsabilidad social y medioambiental de la empresa. Desde el ambito de la informacion contable, se han desarrollado tambien diferentes iniciativas relacionadas con la rendicion de cuentas de las empresas a sus stakeholders o grupos de interes. Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) es una institucion internacional independiente, cuya mision principal consiste en definir guias o pautas de actuacion para la confeccion de memorias de sostenibilidad. La guia o modelo GRI para elaborar memorias de sostenibilidad esta teniendo un impacto creciente en el ambito internacional, aunque destaca, sobre todo, el caso de las empresas de la UE, y, muy en especial, en de las empresas de algunos estados miembro como Espana, Italia y Portugal. El caso espanol resulta especialmente resenable, pues es lider mundial en intensidad de memorias emitidas conforme a GRI, si se relativizan los resultados en relacion a su dimension economica.