The impact of management policies of solid waste in costs behavior: The case of Brazilian companies

This study aims to analyze the costs behavior of Brazilian companies listed on BM&FBOVESPA between 1995 and 2015, with the approval of 12.305/10 Law, which has instituted the Brazilian Solid Waste Policy (BSWP), in order to seek indications of biased behaviors, once there is no consensus in the literature on how costs are affected by the introduction of sustainable practices. In this sense, the periods before and after the Law are analyzed comparatively for all sectors, in a general and in an individual way. Thus, descriptive measures are analyzed, linear trend line, t-Test of Student and data regression in panel. The joint analysis findings do not provide enough evidences to say that the average of the indexes Cost of Goods Sold/Net Sales Revenue (COGS/Revenue), Total Costs/Net Sales Revenue (TC/Revenue) and Net Income/Net Sales Revenue (NI/Revenue) changed with the BSWP, as well as it is not possible to say that it impacts on companies costs, expenses and profits; On the other hand, the sector analysis results indicate that the BSWP impacted in a negative way in the Textile, Steel and Metallurgy, Construction and Industrial Machinery sectors, when it is considered the costs increase and the profitability reduction. © 2020 Widener University School of Civil Engineering. All rights reserved.