Evaluating Social and Ecological Sustainability Initiatives in Global Companies Using Text Analysis Techniques

Although several agencies in charge of promoting the adoption of a Sustainable Development have pointed out the need to seek a balance between economic, social, and environmental dimensions; currently, there is not much evidence about actions being taken to achieve this goal. In this article, we study the balance of the discourse about Sustainable Development (SD) presented in reports issued annually by world-renowned companies which have traded using the Dow Jones index over the last 15 years. Their reports are analysed by means of a Topic Analysis approach and the Monte Carlo method. Results show that, at least in discourse, the selected companies show a better dimensional balance than in other previous studies with a predominance towards lingering ecological factors.