How To Measure Global Sustainable Performance In A Service Enterprise – A Case Study Of The Credibility Of Vigeo’s Rating Of Caisse d’Epargne | Joel Ernult & Arvind Ashta

Certain behaviour by firms may be considered unfair and that people are willing to go so far as punish firms who behave unfairly. This and the development of consumerism and other movements, especially with the rapid growth of information diffusion technologies, has led to firms wanting to maintain images of good citizens who act fairly in all walks of life, adhering to principles of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. However, with all firms saying that they are socially responsible, it is not possible for the public to distinguish information from noise and the public is left with the classic adverse selection problem in which it will ultimately believe no one. There is therefore a credibility gap. One solution is to go in for rating organizations to certify that the firm in question is discharging its social responsibilities. For the rating agency to be credible, it has to be independent, objective, transparent and base its evaluation on a theoretically sound model. This paper looks into the complexity of such a model and questions whether any single global performance measure is possible. It studies a French rating agency, Vigeo, and its evaluation of one French bank, Caisse d?Epargne, to determine if the Vigeo model respects these criteria of credibility