King (2001/2016)
King, Michael. "Sustainability: advantaged or disadvantaged?" Working Paper (PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Manchester, UK) 2001; revised and updated version published in The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, March 2016.
lk notes from 2001 paper:
Identifies 11 "target companies" with top sustainability scores, as determined by SAM sustainability Group of Zurich. These were then compared with 95 peers from 11 industry groups. Finds that "$10,000 [invested] in the sustainable companies delivers greater average returns than the same investment in the sector indexes, the S&P 500 or the peers" although peer companies were actually better for the one- and three-year time horizons. However peer companies had a risk level (std deviation of returns) 1.7x higher than the target group, suggesting that much of the performance difference could be explained by higher risk levels.
"...[C]an organizations deliver a sustainable agenda and still be profitable? The short answer is yes."
From the author’s abstract for the 2016 update: “This update takes the same companies from the 2001 analysis and assesses their financial performance for investors from 2001 to 2015. This analysis continues to find support that the original “sustainable companies” outperform the general market and a basket of their peers. Causality cannot be claimed, but companies looking to make a difference beyond the economic domain should gain confidence from studies such as this—it can be done.”