Sharfman (1996)
Sharfman, Mark. "The construct validity of the Kinder, Lydenberg & Domini social performance ratings data." Journal of Business Ethics, March 1996.
From the author's abstract: "It may be in the best interest of social issues management researchers to try to development a common body of measures and data. Recently, Kinder, Lydenberg and Domini & Co. (KLD — a social choice investment advisory firm) has made available their social performance database. The KLD data have potential to become a widely accepted set of CSP measures. The purpose of this paper is to present a construct validity study comparing the KLD data to other measures of CSP."
LK comment: I believe this was the first work of this type on the database known today as KLD STATS (now owned by MSCI). Although no longer a primary resource for professional investors, this database is still heavily used in academic research.