ESG and Financial Performance Within the Automotive Industry

Abstract: For many years has sustainability been an important factor for companies to consider. Earlier has sustainability been strongly connected with environmental work, but the concept has grown to include factors like working conditions, equality, and ethical business practices. This lay the framework of the concept around ESG, which stands for Environment, Social, and Governance responsibility. In order to measure how companies work with ESG, external organizations produce grades based on corporations' ESG work. ESG has been increasing in popularity and broader use as the awareness regarding corporations and humans' effect on the environment. ESG rating has therefore become one of the most well-known metrics to measure a company's performance in sustainability  The automotive sector stands for a remarkably large portion of the global CO2 emissions worldwide and faces great challenges in the next years in redirecting the industry to a more sustainable business. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between ESG ratings within the automotive industry and their financial performance. The study also investigated the relationship between the three separated pillars in the ESG rating (Environment, Social, and Governance) to financial performance. The study will analyze financial performance through the market-based measure, Tobin’s Q, and the accounting-based measure, ROA. Despite the fact that the topic of ESG and financial performance is a well- researched subject there is still a need for further research as the previous research has shown varying results.  In order to test this relationship several regression analyses were conducted with data from 2012 to 2021 consisting of 79 automotive & auto parts companies. The regression analysis showed a significant negative relationship between ESG and Tobin’s Q and a non-significant relationship between ESG and ROA. The separated ESG pillars all showed a significant negative relationship with financial performance with one exception, ESG showed a non-significant relationship with the Governance rating. The results conclude that sustainability activities, reflected in the ESG rating, have a negative significant relationship with financial performance with two exceptions. ROA and Governance had a non-significant relationship.  The results, therefore, are in contrast with the Stakeholder Theory, which contradicts the profit- maximization viewpoint and argues that companies should focus on a larger group of people than merely its shareholders. The results from this thesis align with the Shareholder Theory, that companies should only engage in activities that maximize the profit for their shareholders.