Annals of the „Constantin Brâncuşi” University of Târgu Jiu, Economy Series, Special Issue, volume II/2016 „ACADEMICA BRÂNCUŞI” PUBLISHER, ISSN 2344 – 3685/ISSN-L 1844 - 7007 THE CORRELATION BETWEEN SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND ORGANIZATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY IN THE BRAZILIAN CONTEXT RODRIGO GOYANNES GUSMÃO CAIADO M.Sc., FLUMINENSE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY, BRAZIL e-mail: rodrigoggcaiado@gmail.com OSVALDO LUIZ GONÇALVES QUELHAS PROF D.Sc., FLUMINENSE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY, BRAZIL e-mail: oquelhas@uol.com.br Abstract Over the past few years, issues of sustainability are gaining greater prominence among organizations and their stakeholders around the world and with it the effective measurement of environmental performance has been a challenge for sustainable transition. The purpose of the article is to analyse, through the the perception of market experts and researchers, what sustainable performance measures have stronger positive correlation to achieve organizational sustainability in order to help employees in making decisions that reduce the consumption of resources and that create value throughout its chain. The research is of an exploratory and descriptive nature, with qualitative and quantitative method and has a deductive logic. It aims to help professionals and academics who want to start the measurement and continuous improvement of economic, environmental, social, governance and technical performance of their organizations. Finally, the analyzes allow direct efforts to sustainable measures considered most important, allowing the transition of the organization for sustainability. Key Words: Performance measurement, Organizational sustainability, Sustainable performance, Sustainable development. Correlation, Classification JEL: C12, C83, Q01, Q56 1. Introduction Historically, the concept of sustainable development emerged in the 1987 report from the UN World Commission on Environment and Development, in a document entitled Our Common Future, it requires that a development be achieved “which meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” [1]. The rapid depletion of natural resources and concerns about the disparity of wealth and organizational social responsibility have made sustainability be increasingly important for research and business practices 2. The adoption of sustainable principles brings benefits that go beyond the environmental and social areas, generating also improves on the economic value of the organization [3]. As [4], the 21st century paradigm is to make organizations can relate differently to the environment in which they coexist. In the current context, among the challenges for an organization to become sustainable, we have: meet the needs of stakeholders [5], achieve triple bottom line in an integrated manner [6] and an effective environmental performance measurement [7]. A crucial aspect to accomplish this task is to use and adequate definition of environmental performance indicators. For [8]. there are various methods and tools for the assessment of sustainable performance in organizational level. From this, designing reliable measures to quantify this performance, considering the variety of factors on the subject, it is essential for the decision-making process of the stakeholders and business management [9]. The article aims to analyse, through the experts’ perception, what sustainable performance measures have stronger positive correlation to achieve organizational sustainability. Also, it seeks to compare the existing theory of sustainable measures highlighted in the literature with the practice of the current Brazilian market. Thus, the correlation of the measures aimed to see which variables are most related and thus propose sustainable guidelines with the intention of directing future efforts to achieve sustainability. 2. Background In this article, we present some of the main sustainable measures (table no. 1) classified according to the technical, economic, environmental, social and governance dimensions [10]. 5