Our sample consists of companies that are included in the 2004 SiRi ( Sustainable Investment Research International ) database , which holds sustainability profiles of companies included in the MSCI World Index . As this index includes the 1500 largest ( by market capitalisation ) equities in the world , our sample represents large corporations from developed markets . SiRi is an international network of socially responsible investment research organisations collecting a range of CSR information of companies for their customers , which are mainly institutional investors . 2 The network members use the collected information also for their local databases and other investment services . The SiRi data have been used in prior research ( van Nimwegen et al . 2008;Prior et al . 2008;Surroca et al . 2010 ) . In addition , the local databases of some of the SiRi members - among which Kinder Lydenberg Domini ( KLD ) , Michael Jantzi Research Associates , and Pensions and Investment Research Consultants - have been extensively used in previous studies . The SiRi database is broadly considered a reliable and high - quality information source on CSR data . The companies that are profiled in the database are all large public companies .