TY - JOUR

T1 - Assessing Corporate Sustainability Through Ratings

T2 - Challenges and Their Causes

AU - Windolph, Sarah Elena

PY - 2011/9

Y1 - 2011/9

N2 - Assessing corporate sustainability is increasingly practice-relevant, not least because the capital market and other markets have been paying growing attention to the topic. Recently, ratings have become an important assessment approach and nowadays a variety of organizations and financial service providers conduct their own ratings. Yet, despite their growing popularity, ratings are criticized in research and practice. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to systematize the challenges that corporate sustainability ratings face: lack of standardization, lack of credibility of information, bias, tradeoffs, lack of transparency, and lack of independence. Furthermore, the paper discusses the causes of these challenges and suggests possible ways to improve the reliability of ratings.

AB - Assessing corporate sustainability is increasingly practice-relevant, not least because the capital market and other markets have been paying growing attention to the topic. Recently, ratings have become an important assessment approach and nowadays a variety of organizations and financial service providers conduct their own ratings. Yet, despite their growing popularity, ratings are criticized in research and practice. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to systematize the challenges that corporate sustainability ratings face: lack of standardization, lack of credibility of information, bias, tradeoffs, lack of transparency, and lack of independence. Furthermore, the paper discusses the causes of these challenges and suggests possible ways to improve the reliability of ratings.

KW - Management studies

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - unternehmerische Nachhaltigkeit

KW - Ratings

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/8588c5c6-df20-354d-aa75-f55dbf684ecd/

U2 - 10.14448/jes.01.0005

DO - 10.14448/jes.01.0005

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 1

SP - 61

EP - 80

JO - Journal of Environmental Sustainability

JF - Journal of Environmental Sustainability

SN - 2159-2519

IS - 1

M1 - 5

ER -