Should more sustainable companies be more efficient?

Procedia Computer Science. 2025. Vol. 266. P. 205–212.

Konstantin Polyakov, Marina Polyakova, Polyakov A.

This study is devoted to the analysis of the relationship between the solution of two different tasks facing the management of a commercial organization - ensuring the efficiency and sustainability of the business. An analysis of publications on this topic shows the existence of contradictory conclusions. The authors hypothesize that there is a strong statistical relationship between sustainability and efficiency. In this case, the relationship may be nonlinear.

This study uses the author's approach to determining and evaluating efficiency, presented in [15, 16, 17, 18], which is a generalization of the established practice of evaluating effectiveness using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The corresponding indicator was obtained as a result of a multi-criteria analysis and was named overall efficiency indicator.

The empirical part of the study was performed on the data of the annual financial statements of Russian food industry enterprises for 2021-2023. Unprofitable companies, companies that were formed or liquidated during this period of time, as well as those companies whose reporting did not allow evaluating efficiency, were excluded.

Modeling using linear regression for panel data allowed us to conclude that there is a statistically significant relationship and its pronounced industry specifics. The authors concluded that there might be a non-linear relationship between capital structure and overall efficiency.

Ключевые слова: эффективность, efficiency, устойчивость, оболочечный анализ данных, sustainability, анализ главных компонент, principal component analysis, food production, Data envelopment analysis (DEA), многокритериальный анализ, Multi-criteria analysis, overall efficiency, index of overall efficiency, индекс общей эффективности, пищевя промышленность

ПУБЛИКАЦИЯ ПОДГОТОВЛЕНА ПО РЕЗУЛЬТАТАМ ПРОЕКТА: Принятие решений в социально-экономической, политической и финансовой сферах (2025)