Increasing evidence of the positive correlation between sustainability performance and financial performance of companies has motivated the proliferation of tools that seek to assess corporate sustainability performance and provide guidance to companies on sustainable business practices and sustainability reporting. Despite the growing number of tools for evaluating, rating and ranking the sustainability performance of companies, the assessment methodologies and frameworks of these tools have not been fully disclosed, leaving both (socially) responsible investors and companies with little publicly available information and understanding of the sustainability issues that are relevant to business practices. This research is an exploratory study seeking to gain greater insight into corporate sustainability assessment as it is practiced within the capital markets. The research specifically examines the extent to which three prominent stock market sustainability indexes, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, the FTSE4Good Index Series and the Jantzi Social Index, represent the sustainability performance of companies. The study involves a comparative analysis of sustainability criteria, and an examination of the extent to which the concept of sustainable development and the theoretical perspectives on sustainability assessment are reflected in the assessment frameworks of the indexes. Furthermore, a secondary question addressed in this study is the extent to which the Global Reporting Initiative’s G3 Guidelines and the ISO 26000 standard influence the sustainability criteria used in the indexes’ assessment frameworks. The significance of this secondary question is to understand the extent of alignment between tools which provide guidance on sustainable business practices and tools which assess corporate sustainability performance. A significant finding of this research is the lack of standardization amongst the assessment and guidance tools on the core sustainability issues that are relevant to businesses across all industry sectors. While all of the tools generally follow the same model of organizing sustainability criteria according to environmental, social and economic themes, within each of those themes, a wide spectrum of issues are covered, with poor consensus amongst the tools on the core indicators that are relevant to business practices. An additional finding is that while the theoretical perspectives on sustainable development and sustainability assessment are evident in the indexes, there is significant margin for improvement in terms of developing indicators which are future-oriented and focus on a long-term perspective, as well as incorporating the notion of context in performance metrics.

Increasing evidence of the positive correlation between sustainability performance and financial performance of companies has motivated the proliferation of tools that seek to assess corporate sustainability performance and provide guidance to companies on sustainable business practices and sustainability reporting. Despite the growing number of tools for evaluating, rating and ranking the sustainability performance of companies, the assessment methodologies and frameworks of these tools have not been fully disclosed, leaving both (socially) responsible investors and companies with little publicly available information and understanding of the sustainability issues that are relevant to business practices. This research is an exploratory study seeking to gain greater insight into corporate sustainability assessment as it is practiced within the capital markets. The research specifically examines the extent to which three prominent stock market sustainability indexes, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, the FTSE4Good Index Series and the Jantzi Social Index, represent the sustainability performance of companies. The study involves a comparative analysis of sustainability criteria, and an examination of the extent to which the concept of sustainable development and the theoretical perspectives on sustainability assessment are reflected in the assessment frameworks of the indexes. Furthermore, a secondary question addressed in this study is the extent to which the Global Reporting Initiative’s G3 Guidelines and the ISO 26000 standard influence the sustainability criteria used in the indexes’ assessment frameworks. The significance of this secondary question is to understand the extent of alignment between tools which provide guidance on sustainable business practices and tools which assess corporate sustainability performance. A significant finding of this research is the lack of standardization amongst the assessment and guidance tools on the core sustainability issues that are relevant to businesses across all industry sectors. While all of the tools generally follow the same model of organizing sustainability criteria according to environmental, social and economic themes, within each of those themes, a wide spectrum of issues are covered, with poor consensus amongst the tools on the core indicators that are relevant to business practices. An additional finding is that while the theoretical perspectives on sustainable development and sustainability assessment are evident in the indexes, there is significant margin for improvement in terms of developing indicators which are future-oriented and focus on a long-term perspective, as well as incorporating the notion of context in performance metrics.

The topic of corporate sustainability reporting has seen rapid growth in the past couple of years as more firms are placing a greater emphasis on becoming sustainable. However, the true impact of sustainability reporting on firm value has been widely debated, often due to the nature of the qualitative data in sustainability reports. This thesis uses a normalized sustainability scoring system to examine the effects of sustainability reporting on firm value. In particular, this paper analyzes these effects during the Great Recession to note if there was any change in the effects on a year-by-year basis due to macroeconomic differences. This study finds that not only is superior corporate sustainability reporting positively correlated with increased firm value, but also that the degree of the impact greatly drops during the recession. These findings suggest that sustainability could be an advantageous business tool during stable economic times but not nearly as important in terms of increasing firm value during times of recession. Therefore, the results of this thesis have important practical uses and serve as a basis for analyzing the financial effects of corporate sustainability initiatives as this type of reporting becomes more prevalent in the future.

Sustainability indicates one of the core topics among society as well as in current business life. On this account it seems highly important to elaborate further on this crucial issue. This research focuses in particular on the implications of the implementation of Corporate Sustainability on the organizational as well as the private values of the employee. To analyse this issue, both theoretical secondary literature and empirical data from expert interviews was used. The research indicated three core findings. 1.) A unified and globally accepted definition and interpretation of Corporate Sustainability seems to be missing. This led to the understanding that organizations use various different methods and tools during the implementation of Corporate Sustainability. 2.) On the basis of the first finding as well as the theoretical background and empirical input, a framework was drawn which may guide organizations during the implementation of Corporate Sustainability. 3.) On the basis of this framework and the interpretations of scholars and experts it emerged, that the key issue during the implementation of Corporate Sustainability seems to be the corporate culture and values. Therefore, it emerges, that the employee has to take a central or key role within such an attempt, as the organizational culture is defined as the sum of the individual values of the employees. In principle, as found, indicates Corporate Sustainability a rather extensive change process, which has its roots and implications on the employee and their values.

Sustainability and corporate responsibility appears to be spoken topics in the business world. Due to this, companies may have to reconsider the way they operate their business. The previous studies within this field are mostly done for large companies and leave SMEs with limited focus. Therefore, this study investigates how SMEs manage their change towards corporate sustainability. The literature used in this study includes theory about change management in general, change management process towards corporate sustainability, and SMEs’ special characters. Based on the knowledge of the existing literature four case companies were investigated and analysed. These chosen SMEs have moved through a successful change process towards sustainable business. The findings revealed that an external pressure such as image, is often the reason for the change. However, when planning and implementing the change, SMEs usually lack knowledge and expertise about sustainability, which hampers the change process. Commitment from employees and especially the management is vital for the change to succeed. Moreover it is crucial that company culture changes in order to complete the change process. Additionally, continuing to evolve is important in order to maintain the change process, and avoid the risk of taking steps back.

Following the suggestions of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative publications on Life Cycle Management (LCM) as a business management approach to improve sustainability performance, this research explored LCM as a promising research area that could help identify the factors that influence the integration of sustainability aspects into organisational processes. The initial research strategy was comprised of LCM literature analysis to explore LCM and identify potential factors that could direct the data collection. The analysis of the LCM literature shows that LCM is vaguely described. This research analysis puts into context the various LCM approaches through the introduction of the four LCM elements. The LCM elements were used as a frame to analyse the LCM cases found in the literature and identify the factors that influence integration of sustainability in organisational processes. The next stage of the research strategy was to conduct action research studies to explore in close proximity the integration of sustainability aspects in organisational processes. Two in depth action research studies were conducted, influenced by engaged scholarship. During Case A, the LCM elements were used in practice to influence the project whilst the LCM factors were observed in practice. Case A demonstrated the complexity of sustainability-related information integration in organisational processes and the division of information flows towards different organisational functions to inform their own decision. The analysis highlighted that developing knowledge is a key LCM factor that influences the application of LCM. As the importance of developing knowledge became apparent, a novel sustainability related intellectual capital (SrIC) framework was developed then used during Case B. This framework is shown to assist the sustainability professionals of Company B in enhancing the sustainability related intellectual capital of the company, which in turn led to more effective sustainability integration. This research used LCM as a ‘vehicle’ to explore the integration of sustainability aspects into organisational processes and hence contribute to the LCM literature with the four LCM elements framework of analysis, descriptions of the factors that influence the application of LCM, bringing a focus on the importance of developing knowledge for the effective application of LCM, and identifying the intellectual capital factors that influence the integration of sustainability aspects into organisational processes.

Despite looming ecological disaster, a persistent state of insufficient action seems commonplace amongst most organizations. This thesis critically explores how this impasse is constituted by discursive struggles surrounding the global ecological crisis. These struggles are situated within the context of global environmental governance – a power arena that has, over the past 25 years, become a defining battleground regarding environmental sustainability. Here, discourses of the ecological crisis are constituted by political contests amongst, most notably, multinational corporations, civil society organizations, and (trans)national policy actors. This thesis draws mainly from post-structural discourse theory, coupled with critical perspectives on organizations and the natural environment, to explore both the discursive practices that fix meanings surrounding the global ecological crisis, and the power effects thereof. The primary source of data is text – this study is explicitly interested in how discourses of the global ecological crisis evolve as the natural environment is (mis)represented in organizational disclosures. Despite recognition by management and organization scholars that the natural environment is indeed constructed, a functional separation between business and nature persists, the relationship of which is mostly examined from a firm-centric perspective. However, sustainability issues such as climate change transcend the confines of firm activity and operate across spatial and temporal dimensions. Hence, there is an urgent need to reconsider the business-nature dualism. To do so, this study adopts a multi-level, multi-method approach that permits a necessary degree of analytical and theoretical flexibility. The four individual articles that encompass this work, whilst drawing from different theoretical approaches, along with focusing on different levels of analysis, are underpinned by the contentious intersection between discourse, organizations and the natural environment. The first article concerns ‘macro talk’ and, operating on the field level, explores how a dominant understanding of business’ role in sustainable development is constituted during the UN Earth Summits in 1992, 2002, and 2012. The second article regards ‘corporate talk’ and, this time on an organizational level, examines how tensions between economic growth and environmental protection are avoided by the European oil and gas supermajors—BP, Shell and Total—through the practice of mythmaking. The third article takes a longitudinal approach and, also concerning ‘corporate talk’, examines how BP rearticulated a hegemonic discourse of fossil fuels, which, when enacted, reproduces corporate inaction on climate change. Finally, the fourth article emphasizes ‘resistance talk’, focusing on how climate activists, as part of the global fossil fuel divestment movement, engage in certain micro-level practices as they attempt to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry. In all, the findings from these articles suggest that organizations both represent nature as something to be conquered, dominated, and valued economically and as a pristine wilderness to be preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. In pursuing these two extremes concurrently, organizations self-perpetuate a social-symbolic deadlock that hinders finding sustainable ways for human systems to coexist with natural systems. This thesis contributes mainly to literature on organizations and the natural environment by illustrating how certain practices, mechanisms, and processes continuously redefine the business-nature relationship by facilitating a discursive struggle across multiple spatial and temporal dimensions. In doing so, there are implications both for policy and business organizations, which are discussed in the concluding chapter of this work.

There are increased calls for corporations to act responsibly. Those responsibilities exceed the classical assumption that the only responsibility of the firm is its shareholders and ultimately to maximize their wealth. Any social issue participation has been described as charity or squandering of resources at the expense of the shareholders. According to the Stakeholder theory, firms should consider every stakeholder that is affected by the company and stakeholder management can be a source of value. The risk reduction hypothesis is especially interesting in the context of corporate sustainability. There have been multiple studies that have explored the relationship between corporate sustainability performance and the risk of financial distress. Like those studies, this study found that corporate sustainability performance is negatively associated with the risk of financial distress. Thereby answering the research question proposed by the authors: “Does corporate sustainability performance affect the risk of financial distress?”. Companies with higher sustainability performance will experience less risk and engagement in those activities works as a risk reduction tool. Different levels of sustainability performance have different effect on the risk, which should be considered by investors and management. It should inspire investors to incorporate sustainable companies in their investment portfolios. Furthermore, the thesis contributes to the field of knowledge by analyzing the empirical results using the Stakeholder Theory, the Shareholder Theory, the Legitimacy Theory, the Resource-based view, the Agency Theory and the Stewardship Theory. The study provides evidence of an increasing importance of sustainability performance and suggests that firms can use sustainability performance to mitigate risk. This is a panel data analysis including approximately 16,000 firm-year observations. The study takes a deductive approach, and the research is conducted under a positivist paradigm. The data is tested through conducting OLS regressions with fixed effects. The results of the statistical testing have been compared to previous studies and other relevant literature.

Corporate water risk is a function of resource dependence, which exposes firms to uncertainty. Firms rationally seek to reduce this risk, and this shapes their disclosure strategies. However, the consequence is that corporate water risk disclosure is becoming increasingly unfit for purpose. As current approaches begin to acquire institutional legitimacy and the path-dependent label of best practice, a status quo is becoming embedded, reinforced through mimetic behaviour. The agency problem that this creates is unchecked; in part because of the legitimacy acquired by the disclosure strategies, but also because of temporal myopia exhibited by investors, which contributes to unpredictable decision-making. The status quo also results in sub-optimal resource allocation, a problem that is compounded by the large and growing global infrastructure deficit for water supply and services. This thesis sets out a framework by which the disclosure of corporate water risk can be meaningfully evaluated by investors and other stakeholders; and proposes how the water infrastructure investment gap could be narrowed by the development and application of the corporate water return concept. The research builds on empirical foundations to offer new approaches that address the problems of the status quo. First, it empirically explores perceptions of best practice in terms of water risk disclosure, from the perspective of both listed firms and leading institutional investors (Chapters 3 and 4). Second, it proposes a methodology through which firms can disclose water risks in a systematic format; and advances corporate water return as a complementary concept to water risk, in order to catalyse corporate investment in water infrastructure (Chapters 5 and 6). Resource dependence theory, institutional theory, and stakeholder theory are combined to create a trio of integrative, explicative conceptual narratives that form the overarching thesis structure. The research also draws on other themes from economic geography, including proximity; strategic cognition; transaction costs; and real options theory.

Purpose - The purpose of this master thesis is to examine individual social media behaviour in relation to corporate sustainability issues. Based on a model from environmental psychology, factors that influence this behaviour are identified. Methodology/approach - The study followed an explanatory and qualitative approach. Three focus groups, that consisted of 19 students in total, were conducted. Findings - Key findings are (1) the level of social media activity with regard to corporate sustainability issues is not directly connected to the students’ awareness and knowledge of sustainability issues; (2) responsibility and priorities have a weaker influence on social media than on offline behaviour; (3) the perceived locus of control can prevent students from communicating about corporate sustainability in social media; (4) students with high knowledge on sustainability are less inclined to trust corporate sustainability communication. Research limitations/implications - To further examine individual social media behaviour in relation to corporate sustainability issues, future research needs to apply long-term studies with bigger samples. Furthermore, participants with different socio-economic characteristics should be compared to see if key factors, relations, and barriers that have been the result of this study, are also true for other socio-economic groups. Practical implications - The study’s findings suggest that corporations need to consider three main issues if they want to inform and engage individuals in corporate sustainability activities via social media: (1) content has to be tailored for target groups with different levels of knowledge on sustainability issues; (2) third-party-endorsements significantly support the creation of confidence in the communication of corporate sustainability activities and are therefore crucial; (3) detailed replies to critical comments from individual users help to create trust and transparency. Originality/value - This study differs from previous research on social media in two ways: (1) it focuses on social media’s empowerment potential for sustainability instead of political issues; (2) it addresses the gap on individuals’ reasons to actively participate in social media.