Analyse de l'intégration des critères ESG dans le secteur financier : impact sur la performance en Scandinavie et comparaisons avec le reste de l'Europe à travers le temps

Abstract

The integration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria into investment practices has become a major priority for companies and investors worldwide. These criteria are now seen as essential not only for mitigating risks but also for seizing long-term value creation opportunities.

The primary objective of this thesis is to understand how the integration of ESG criteria influences the financial performance of Scandinavian companies in the financial sector and to compare these results with those from the rest of Europe. It is framed within the theoretical context of sustainable finance and responsible investment.

The study relies on several statistical analysis methods, including the Diff-in-Diff approach, multiple regression, and quantile regression, to evaluate the impact of ESG scores, ESGC scores, SGR, and ESG Risk Score on various financial indicators such as ROA, ROE, revenue growth, beta, EPS, and FCF per Share.

One of the notable aspects of this study is the high number of statistically non-significant results. This suggests that, in many cases, ESG criteria do not seem to have a notable influence on financial performance, or at least not in a way that can be easily measured with the models used. For Scandinavian companies, although some results showed positive effects, such as an improvement in ROA linked to SGR, many other indicators, such as ROE and FCF per Share, did not show significant impacts from ESG or ESGC scores. These results suggest that despite advances in ESG practices in this region, their translation into tangible financial performance remains uncertain.

For companies in the rest of Europe, many of the results obtained were also statistically non-significant, particularly for ESG and ESGC scores. Although some coefficients showed negative trends, these effects were often not robust enough to be considered significant for indicators such as revenue growth or ROE. This lack of significance might indicate that the impact of ESG practices is less pronounced or less clearly measurable in these companies, possibly reflecting a less mature or more complex integration of ESG criteria in these contexts.

However, the time factor proved to be an important variable in this analysis. In some cases, the temporal evolution, post-2017 with the Paris Agreement, showed a positive impact on financial performance, although the results were not always statistically significant. This observation underscores the importance of temporality and context in evaluating the impact of ESG practices.

In conclusion, this thesis highlights the complexity of assessing ESG criteria and their impact on companies' financial performance. The many non-significant results call for caution in interpreting the data and suggest that integrating ESG criteria does not automatically translate into improved financial performance. It is possible that other variables, not accounted for in this study, play a key role, or that the impact of ESG practices requires a longer observation period to fully manifest.