As empresas brasileiras praticam greenwashing? : evidências de empresas da B3, utilizando machine learning para mostrar diferença entre o discurso e a prática

Abstract

The study proposes an innovative approach to measuring the likelihood of greenwashing in organizations' sustainability reports. The methodology uses artificial intelligence (AI), through machine learning techniques, to analyze the discrepancy between what companies disclose in their reports and their actual sustainability practices. The main contribution of the study lies in the application of machine learning to assess the environmental, social and governance (ESG) properties of Brazilian companies based on textual data. The analysis focuses on the occurrence of words related to ESG practices present in corporate reports. Thus, the central objective of the study is to verify whether there is evidence of greenwashing, evidenced by the discrepancy between the ESG corporate disclosures of companies listed on the Brazilian Stock Exchange (B3) and the MERCO index. The MERCO index serves as an external reference, as it assesses the corporate reputation of companies based on ESG criteria. Subsequently, a linear regression was used to confirm the correlation between ESG reports and the MERCO index, reinforcing the robustness of the results. The data was collected between 2022 and 2023, and the statistical model was employed in cross-sectional data analysis. When comparing the indexes, only 25% of the companies with the best ESG scores (calculated with machine learning) are also among the companies with the best scores in the MERCO index. This indicates an alignment between ESG discourse and practice in this group. Therefore, these companies have a low probability of greenwashing. However, the remaining 75% of companies with high ESG scores are not present in the top positions of the Merco ranking. This discrepancy between the discourse in ESG reports and corporate reputation (measured by Merco) suggests the possibility of greenwashing in this group of companies