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Evaluation of the performance of firms in the ESG index of the Athens stock exchange

Siachos Konstantinos

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Summary

Environmental – Social – Governance, or ESG, has been a consistent topic of discussion amongst investors in recent years and continues to gain more attention each year. However, as every fresh and evolving topic, ESG still has some areas of uncertainty surrounding it. For example, some terminology involved in ESG investing is still ambiguous in nature, although it is certainly moving in a positive direction with progressive action to clarify the related definitions, strategies, and methodologies. Furthermore, it is well known that the ESG rankings and ratings may differ greatly between different rating agencies and providers. Thus, the presented dissertation attempts to answer the aforementioned concerns by providing a clear outline and classification of the existing terminology, an introduction to the ESG rating agencies including their rating systems, as well as these agencies’ purposes and current issues such as the quality of ESG information and ratings. A brief historical regression is provided for better understanding of the evolution of this complicated space. After settling some theoretical aspects of ESG, the key aim of this dissertation is the evaluation of the performance of the companies ATHEX_ESG, a financial index of the Athens Stock Exchange, is consisted of for the years 2018 through 2020. The methodology to support this evaluation is consisted of two parts. Firstly, several financial ratios are calculated for each company, covering a wide range of their financial wellness. These ratios are then compared both historically for every company as well as between companies of the same sectors. Secondly, multicriteria decision analysis, or MDCA, is implemented, used specifically ELECTRE III, a multicriteria methodology aiming to rank all of the above companies based on their performance on the financial ratios mentioned before. The first key finding, determined through several reports and in accordance with analysts, is that ESG adoption will continue amongst companies as well as investors who are now more willing to apply more relevant data to their investment decisions. A final finding regarding the evaluation of the ATHEX_ESG companies demonstrates that there is no clear correlation between an increase in their performance with Environmental, Social and Governance adoption, as some of them did not see an improvement in their financial ratios in comparison to others, a conclusion opposite to the majority of the existing literature.

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