A Study on the Publishing of Environmental Investments in the Enterprise Sector Using the Social Balance.

Abstract

In recent years the interest of the society in knowing the true investments of the companies in social responsibility and environment has been frequent. One of these examples can be observed by knowing of the Business Charter for Sustainable Development of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), divulged in 1991, that suggests some actions that the companies must take in order to be prepared for the new reality originated from environment issues. Being thus, the concern with the environment, boasted in all the spheres of the society, gave space to two subjects of great repercussion in internal and external environments of the organizations: the social responsibility and the concern with the environment. In this context, the demonstration that can supply stakeholders with environment information is the social balance, that has as objective to demonstrate the result of the interaction of the company with the environment. Based on the above considerations, the question which we can make is: in spite of all the persistence of society, can we say that the companies have gradually increased their investments related to environment? This subject is justified by the fact that the companies have used the applications in environment and social responsibility for marketing purposes; however, the applied values and their true involvement adding this information to their financial demonstrations can only be identified by occasion of these publications. The objective of this work was to research the number of companies which had published information of social and environmental nature, in 2005 and 2006, by means of social balance, and afterwards, to verify the behavior of the environmental pointers which were divulged in the mentioned balances and were related to production. The present work was developed by means of documentary and descriptive research and was based on the published financial demonstrations in specific media. In reply to the research question, and analyzing the time interval delimited in the research, it is observed that, although minimum adequate models exist so that the companies disclose their true interests in relation to sustainable development, we cannot say that the companies are extending their investments related to production aiming at sustainability.