THE EVOLUTION OF CSR ACROSS LISTED BRAZILIAN FIRMS

This paper analyzes the improvements in corporate social responsibility (CSR) among Brazilian companies listed on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange – Bovespa, focusing on the type of social and environmental projects together with the amount of investments over the period 2003-2007. The empirical analysis is based on the content of the CSR reports of 48 companies, among them those making up the Bovespa’s Corporate Sustainability Index. All the identified social and environmental projects were classified into eleven categories and three investment categories: internal, external and environmental. The results show the need to standardize the CSR reports due to the absence of uniformity among the sample firms. The investment data reveal a significant increase in external investment projects, followed by the internal category. The results of the environmental category reveal only a moderate increase due to the reduction of the environmental investment in the petroleum industry. Overall, the results reveal that companies tend to invest in projects strongly linked to their main activities.