Impacts of sustainability factors on financial indicators for real estate companies active in retail: Evidence from Europe

The real estate has become great concern in ensuring sustainable development due to its characteristics and influence on society, environment and economics. In the real estate industry, retail real estate sector has attained attention from investors over recent years since outperformance of the market over office market. The sustainability aspects in the sector is also noteworthy because of its unique characteristics. The thesis has analyzed sustainability reporting performance and few financial performance indicators of European real estate companies active in retail sector. Subsequently, impact of the sustainability reporting performance of the companies on the financial profitability from managerial viewpoint and investment viewpoint have also been studied. The sustainability reporting performance on an average in the year 2015 among the European listed real estate companies active in retail in general is found as very dissatisfactory. The companies still require focusing on identified aspects and boundaries to conduct a report, and human rights and personal relocation in particular. The companies that are operating in the UK, Finland, Sweden and Belgium outperformed the companies that are operating in other European countries because of laws and legislations, and public sustainability awareness initiative at the national level in those countries. Furthermore, the companies active in retail market solely outperformed other considered sectors in terms of the sustainability issues since the sector maintains high transparency due to internationalization and conceives significance in local planning policies. However, the sustainability activities of the companies operating in the retail sector solely has a negative impact on their financial performance. Nevertheless, firm size and revenue affect positively on both of the sustainability reporting performance and the financial performance of the companies. In addition, if the companies are operating in the UK, and/or operating in several diversified real estate markets and/or companies that are operating as REIT, they were tend to financially successful irrespective of the sustainability activities. The sustainability reporting performance of the companies is also found to be rewarded by the financial profitability of the companies from viewpoints of both of efficient asset management and investment. Even after controlling country variation and sector variation, the sustainability reporting performance of the companies are positively related with financial profitability from both of managerial viewpoint and investment viewpoint. Adoption of sustainability issues in business strategies increases net income through low consumption of resources and employee effectiveness as well as improves efficiency of asset management. Accordingly, sustainability awareness of a company boosts earning of investors from each outstanding common stock