Petrobras, the Brazilian state-controlled oil and gas multinational has maintained its share in the composition of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) – the most important global sustainability index.
The company informs in a press release that it "has consolidated itself as one of the eight most sustainable companies in Brazil."
The inclusion in the index, which sets parameters for analyzing socially and environmentally responsible investors, takes place after an evaluation of the economic, environmental and social performances of more than 2,500 companies in 57 different sectors from all over the world. Presently, only 20 global oil and gas companies figure in the index.
The index's evaluation criteria have determined that Petrobras has stood out " for its transparency, brand management, environment performance, biodiversity, human resource development, and corporate citizenship, thus allowing for its overall score to rise from 70, in 2007, to 73 in 2008."
Also according to Petrobras, the score has improved as a result of improvement in the "Economic Dimension" criterion, the highlight being Exploration and Production, which leaped from 21% to 75%.
"The fact that we have remained in the index goes to show that the company earned recognition for its efforts, in recent years, in the environmental area, in the transparency of its accounting processes, information diffusion and corporate governance," goes the release.
Petrobras informed that, currently, approximately US$ 6 billion are invested in funds based exclusively in companies that figure in the DJSI indexes.
Brazilian companies included in the index are as follows: Aracruz Celulose (in the cellulose sector), Banco Bradesco (banking), Banco Itaú (banking), Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais (CEMIG – power supply company), Itausa Investimentos (banking), Usiminas (ironworks), and Votorantim Celulose e Papel (cellulose and paper).
In the Oil and Gas sector, included companies are as follows: AMEC, BG Group, BP, ENI, EnCana Corp., FMC Technologies, Gamesa Corporacion Tecnológica, Neste Oil Oyj, Nexen, Noble, Repsol YPF, Royal Dutch.
ABr
