New indicator for measuring the environmental sustainability of publicly traded companies: An innovation for the IPAT approach

Abstract The present study aimed to present a conceptual and practical overview of IPAT and a remodeling of the indicator, making it applicable to publicly traded companies as a new methodology to measure their environmental performance through the IPAT-e indicator, constituting information to support investment decisions in stock exchanges. The new approach, here called IPAT-e, consists of adapting the IPAT equation for its application to the business environment, allowing to measure the degree of sustainability of companies, considering their impact from their water consumption, atmospheric emissions, effluents emissions, energy consumption and solid waste generation. Companies part of the corporate sustainability (ISE) and the efficient carbon (ICO 2 ) indices of the Brazilian stock exchange (BM&FBovespa) are the objects of this study. Data were collected after ICO 2 came into effect in 2010 and comprised the period from 2010 to 2015. In this criterion, seven companies were selected: Braskem, BR Food, Fibria, Klabin, Natura, Suzano and Vale. The index was effective in assessing production technological efficiency, allowing to identify which variables were causing impact over a period. That, associated with elasticity calculation, allowed analyzing the influence of production on variables that caused impact, depending on the degree of technology adopted by the company.