Impact of GRI-G4 compliance on firm performance: an empirical study on sustainability reporting in German and French firms

Abstract

GRI-G4 guidelines have been issued since 2013 and have attracted more and more companies to apply in preparing sustainable reports. Due to significant increases in G4 compliances, the paper focuses on examining whether there are relations between GRI-G4 compliance and firm performance. The impact of GRI-G4 compliances on firm performance will be tested according to companies’ conformity. Compliance of GRI-G4 guidelines are divided into compliance and non-compliance status. Companies that apply core and comprehensive guidance are considered as compliant companies, otherwise are seen as non-compliance. Adherent status is collected from GRI database and data of 141 German and French companies are gathered from firms’ annual reports. Regression is applied to test the connection between compliance status and firm performance. Firm performance is treated as dependent variables and is indicated by ROE and ROA. Independent variable is GRI compliance which has two values, 1 for compliance, and 0 for non-application. Control variables such as firm size, firm age, sales growth and leverage are also included in the formula for the examination. The research finds significant results on negative relationship between G4 compliance and firm performance in German firms. However, there was no connection in these two variables in French firms and in all observations in the sample.