Sustainability Reporting: A Comparative Analysis in Portuguese and Brazilian Major Companies

2. Theoretical Foundation

Several environmental disasters and financial/ethic scandals led to an impressive growth in society’s awareness those issues, in Europe and later in the USA (Van Bellen, 2002). Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important topic in today’s corporate world and can contribute to the current and future success of organizations. The integration of ecological, social, and economic objectives into corporate decisions is a key success factor for transformation towards sustainability (Muller & Pfleger, 2014). Management and shareholders cannot overlap the corporations’ interests to economic and social assets of the society itself (Marcondes, 2010). They have the responsibility to show to different players that corporation activity respects the main principles and treaties aimed at preserving the economy and society in the long term (Anunciação, 2014). This is a collective and gradual process. The inclusion of issues related to sustainability and its deepening as a central component in organizational management and their strategic plans is an evolutionary process: many companies have come a long way to get there (SAM, 2012).