Does ESG Reporting Relate to Corporate Financial Performance in the Context of the Energy Sector Transformation? Evidence from Poland

Michał Baran, Aneta Kuźniarska, Zbigniew J. Makieła, Anna Sławik and Magdalena M. Stuss
Additional contact information
Michał Baran: Institute of Economics, Finance and Management, Jagiellonian University, 31-007 Kraków, Poland
Aneta Kuźniarska: Institute of Economics, Finance and Management, Jagiellonian University, 31-007 Kraków, Poland
Zbigniew J. Makieła: Department of Management, WSB University, 41-300 Dąbrowa Górnicza, Poland
Anna Sławik: Institute of Economics, Finance and Management, Jagiellonian University, 31-007 Kraków, Poland
Magdalena M. Stuss: Institute of Economics, Finance and Management, Jagiellonian University, 31-007 Kraków, Poland

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-22

Abstract: This paper aims to investigate whether the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) score of companies operating in the energy sector is associated with their corporate financial performance (CFP). The research covered data from eight companies with a dominant position in the Polish energy sector. The research used the comparative analysis between ESG performance and accounting-based measures of profitability: return on equity (ROE), return on assets (ROA) and return on sales (ROS). Additionally, reference was also made to the DuPont model. The acquired results do not reveal repetitive dependencies that would facilitate the discovery of a pattern of the impact of the factors of ESG on the financial performance of enterprises. Despite indicating the cases of correlations between the ESG scores and CFP at a high level, indeed sometimes at a very high level, the particular case studies significantly differ from each other. This may be caused by the fact that Polish enterprises from the energy sector illustrate far-reaching specifics, among others, with regard to the key significance of the entities with a prevalent state ownership and strict administrative regulations, which are subject to the energy market, state of development and structure of the whole sector in Poland. Thus, this is also why the mechanisms or dependencies, whose existence it is possible to expect in conditions of free competition, may be weakened or even eliminated in Polish conditions.

Keywords: energy sector; corporate social responsibility; CSR; ESG (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/2/477/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/2/477/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:2:p:477-:d:721633

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().