Foreword

Brazil is looking to improve its sustainability policies for corporate governance with a view to aligning its legal and regulatory framework with the recommendations in the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance (G20/OECD Principles).

This report contributes to this goal by presenting an overview of the main trends and issues related to sustainability policies and practices for corporate governance, both in Brazil and globally. It supports efforts to develop the country’s legal and regulatory framework for sustainability disclosure, the responsibilities of company boards and shareholder rights. The analysis in the report is based on responses to two OECD surveys with 63 Brazilian companies comprising around half of the country’s market capitalisation and 363 asset managers investing more than USD 1 trillion in the country.

This report is part of a joint project between the OECD and Brazil’s Securities and Exchange Commission (Comissão de Valores Mobiliários - CVM) and funded by the UK Prosperity Fund. The project is divided into two phases. This report concludes the first phase of data collection and analysis. In the second phase, the OECD will organise an experts’ workshop in Brazil and further develop the findings in this report to include policy recommendations.

This report was prepared by Caio Figueiredo Cibella de Oliveira and Tugba Mulazimoglu, under the supervision of Serdar Çelik, all from the Corporate Governance and Corporate Finance Division of the OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs. It benefits from and includes some extracts from a new OECD report on Climate Change and Corporate Governance. The authors are grateful to Alejandra Medina for valuable comments and to Greta Gabbarini for communications support.