Increasing concern regarding environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts are influencing investor decisions. The growing risk of climate change impacts poses a risk to long-term sustainable economic growth and returns. Additionally, increasing societal concern over corporate ESG impacts also poses a risk to corporate efficiency and success. As a result of these increasing risks investors, both retail and institutional, are participating in ESG investment strategies. Such strategies take into account corporate ESG impacts and behaviors, however, ESG information and data is not easily available. This thesis will examine the current ESG investing landscape, more specifically what investors are demanding. For the most part, investors want reliable data that they can use in their investment strategies, however, the ESG information available is insufficient, unreliable, and incomparable as ESG reporting and disclosures are not currently mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). One available solution to this obstacle is the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), which guides corporations on how to optimally disclose on its ESG impacts. Unfortunately, this solution on its own is not enough. SEC intervention is clearly needed to enforce and regulate ESG disclosure to avoid the challenges of voluntary ESG reporting. Furthermore, the concept of materiality implies a corporate duty to report on ESG issues as there is strong evidence indicating its influence over investors' decisions. Likewise, the SEC has a duty to regulate this information. While this thesis suggests the SASB framework as a possible solution to the deficiency of ESG information, its goal is not to solve the issue, but rather merely begin the discussion.

Titel: ESG och finansiell prestationNivå: Examensarbete på grundnivå (kandidatexamen) i ämnet företagsekonomiFörfattare: Emma Isaksson och Jonna RemmelHandledare: Asif M. HuqDatum: 2024 - MajSyfte: Hållbar utveckling är en viktig fråga för såväl investerare som institutioner. Det medför attföretag måste balansera ekonomisk lönsamhet och hållbarhet, både på kort och lång sikt. Covid19 pandemin har ökat intresset för hur hållbarhet påverkar den finansiella prestationen, menforskningen om sambandet mellan ESG och den finansiella prestationen har gett tvetydiga resultat.Då Sverige hade ett annorlunda angreppssätt under pandemin blir syftet med denna studie attundersöka svenska börsnoterade företags finansiella prestationer efter covid-19 pandemin utifrånESG-värderingar.Metod: Studien tillämpar en kvantitativ forskningsmetod och en deduktiv ansats medsekundärdata från Thomson Reuters datastream Refinitiv Eikon. Studien omfattar 76 finansiellaföretag från länderna Sverige, Norge, Danmark och Finland under räkenskapsåren 2017-2023.Datan har analyserats genom statistikprogrammen IBM SPSS samt STATA, där en univariat,bivariat och multivariat analys har tillämpats.Resultat och slutsats: Studien antyder att det inte finns några signifikanta skillnader mellanSverige och de övriga nordiska länderna när det gäller sambandet mellan ESG- betyg samt desstre pelare och finansiell prestation efter covid-19.Examensarbetets bidrag: Studien bidrar till att bygga vidare på tidigare forskning av sambandetmellan ESG och covid-19 genom att fördjupa kunskapen om hur hållbarhetsstrategier, somfokuserar på ESG-betyg, påverkar företags finansiella prestationer efter covid-19. Studien ger nyainsikter och resultat som kan gynna jämförelsen mellan olika branscher.Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Då denna studie inte fann signifikanta samband utifrån urvalethade det varit intressant att replikera studien med ett utökat urval för att se om resultaten blir mersignifikanta. Då de nordiska länderna liknar varandra hade det varit intressant att studera om detfinns en skillnad mot andra europeiska länder som eventuellt skiljer sig mer. Till sist hade det varitintressant att skilja på Norge, Finland och Danmark för att studera skillnaderna mellan ländernamer djupgående.Nyckelord: Covid-19, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), finansiella prestationer,intressentteorin, legitimitetsteorin, institutionell teori, nordiska länder.

The leaders of all countries of each sector and level of society are compelled to work together to address [social and environmental] challenges by maintaining sustainable human development and ensuring that the benefits of globalization are shared more widely. It is in the interests of businesses that these benefits continue both for companies and for others in society.   The Venture Capital is a financial capital provided to the startup firms in their early stages which has a high potential for growth but also entail high risk. The Venture capital firms typically look for new and small businesses with a perceived long term growth potential that will result in a high payout for investors. Venture capital is a subset of private equity of the firms. On other hand, Private equity is an asset class consisting of equity securities, which are not quoted in the stock market. An investment in private equity most often involves either an investment of capital in a mature firms as well as buyout firms.             The purpose of this study is to explore the gap between UK and U.S venture capital and private equity firms on the base of ESG criteria into investment decision making process. To find a relationship between venture capital and private equity firms mainstream investment with ESG criteria and also highlight new trends and the issues, which are potential barrier of ESG criteria implementation in UK and US firms. The authors used different academic literature, previous studies to find a gap and a relationship of ESG criteria into mainstream investment decision making process in UK and U.S firms.   The research is based on both primary & secondary data under descriptive nature of study. A technique with the name of content analysis was used to collect the quantitative data from the U.K and U.S Venture Capital and Private Equity firms. These firms are further categorized in the sample size under the umbrella of clean tech and non-clean tech. Total sample size is 120 firms (60 VC & 60 PE), where 56 are clean tech and 64 are Non-clean tech firms. The find a relationship between variables regression analysis technique is used through SPSS for verifying the validity and variability of collected Data.   We found that, an ESG criterion is on development stage, and there is no such technique and standards that are developed by the venture capital and private equity firms. We found, that firms are mostly focusing on responsible investment strategy; it is somehow same like whole ESG for purpose of their investment screening process. We found that ESG consideration in some UK and U.S venture capital and private equity firms exist, but vary from firms to firms. Some firms are considering just one factor while some other firms consider more than one.  Large firms have more focus on ESG as compared to small firms; due to the nature of business and size, and number of employees, focus is only limited towards investment options and development of strategies for the firm. The result of this study interpret that the U.S firms are focusing more on investment returns, and pay less attention towards ESG as compared to U.K firms, Where UK Venture capital and private equity firms results shows that, they are more focused towards ESG and feel free to incorporate ESG criteria into their investment strategies without incurring any cost in terms of risk and returns.