Background: Light has been shed on the textile industry as one of the leading industries when it comes to economic growth, global warming and sustainable development. The increasing demand for sustainable activities from stakeholders has led to the importance of measuring the sustainable development of companies. ESG reporting is a common tool used to indicate a company’s sustainability performance. Prior research has tended to focus on cross-sectional industries, and therefore a gap was identified for industry specific research.   Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explain the relationship between sustainability performance and financial performance in the textile industry in the European and North American markets to see if companies that invest in sustainability activities benefit financially.   Method: This research has followed a positivistic paradigm, with deductive reasoning and a quantitative approach. A probability sampling approach was performed by conducting secondary data from Thomson Reuters DataStream of companies in the textile industry in Europe and North America. This resulted in a final sample of ESG scores and ROIC of 44 companies. The data was later analysed in the SPSS software program by following the estimation method Ordinary Least Squares (OLS).    Findings: The literature review developed two hypotheses to address the research purpose and questions. The two hypotheses were analysed through two regression analyses that were satisfied through the OLS estimation method. The result showed that there was a significant relationship between the aggregated ESG score and ROIC which supported the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis of the multiple regression model showed that each component of ESG is correlated to ROIC, however, the environmental factor was not statistically significantly related.    Conclusion: The thesis showed that there is a positive relationship between ESG performance and ROIC in this study. This implies that companies that invest in sustainable development increase their financial performance. The aggregated ESG score as well as the social factor and the governance factor had the highest impact on ROIC, which is supported by the stakeholder theory as there has been an increasing demand on social and governance activities in the textile industry. This further supports that sustainability performance impact on financial performance is industry specific.

L’étude du développement de la performance ESG dans les PME libanaises prouve son importance dans le fait que ces entreprises cherchent des solutions durables pour faire face aux différentes crises politiques et leurs répercussions non négligeables sur l’économie du pays. Notre recherche s’est engagée de souligner à l’aide d’une étude qualitative exploratoire sur quatre PME libanaises, si ces entreprises sont sensibilisées aux critères ESG de la performance en particulier voir le rôle du dirigeant, des parties prenantes et de l’adoption des normes ESG dans la promotion des pratiques responsables pour une meilleure performance globale durable. Les PME libanaises constituent des terrains souvent néophytes en RSE. Leurs défis principaux sont notamment l’amélioration de leur performance économique et financière et surtout leur survie. L’engagement ESG des PME libanaises est justifié par les convictions du dirigeant et ses valeurs, l’amélioration de la performance économique et financière et parfois l’adoption des normes ESG. Des freins sont à signaler notamment le manque des ressources financières dû principalement aux crises économiques et politiques. / The study of the development of ESG performance in Lebanese SMEs proves its importance in the fact that these companies are looking for sustainable solutions to deal with the different political crises and their significant repercussions on the country’s economy. Our research is committed to highlight via a qualitative exploratory study of four Lebanese SMEs if these companies are aware of the ESG performance criteria, underline the role of managers, stakeholders, and the adoption of ESG standards in promoting responsible practices. Lebanese SMEs are often neophytes’ grounds for CSR. Their main challenges include improving their economic and financial performance and especially their survival. The ESG commitment of Lebanese SMEs is mainly justified by the manager’s beliefs and values, the improvement of economic and financial performance and sometimes by the adoption of ESG standards. There are many brakes especially the lack of financial resources mainly due to economic and political crisis.

Titel: Institutionella investerares preferenser för ES-kriterier Nivå: Examensarbete på Grundnivå (kandidatexamen) i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare: Melisa Tatarevic och Alexandra Berg Nordström Handledare: Jan Svanberg Datum: 2022 - Januari Syfte: Intressenternas ökade behov av insyn i miljö-, sociala- och styrningsfrågor har givit stor vikttill hållbarhetsrapportering världen över. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka huruvidainstitutionellt ägande beror av ES-kriterier och ger nytt ljus åt forskningen med fokus på bådepositiva och negativa aspekter av ES-kriterier. Ökar/minskar det institutionella ägandet beroende pånärvaron av policyer hos företag? Existerar det ett samband mellan ESG-betyget och policyer? Metod: Med sekundärdata från databasen Refinitiv Eikon har denna kvantitativa studie medtvärsnittsdesign analyserat 2653 publika företag i IBM: s statistikprogram SPSS. Studien presenterarbeskrivande statistik, en korrelationsmatris, kontroll av felkällor samt multipla regressionsanalyser. Resultat & slutsats: Studien ger bevis för att det institutionella ägandet huvudsakligen ökar vidnärvaron av specifika policyer. Emellertid minskar institutionellt ägande vid närvaron av en specifikpolicy. Studien finner även stöd för ett existerande samband mellan ESG-betyget och policyer. Examensarbetets bidrag: Studien bidrar med ny information till forskningen inom ESG-betygetoch för institutionella investerare genom ett unikt tillvägagångssätt att studera institutionellainvesterares preferenser för olika ES-kriterier med fokus på både styrkor och svagheter. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Kvantitativ forskning kan svara på huruvida liknande resultat hadeuppnåtts vid val av andra indikatorer. Kvalitativ forskning kan från institutionella investeraresperspektiv, förklara hur de faktiskt beaktar ES-kriterier och dess indikatorer vid investeringsbeslut. Nyckelord: Hållbarhetsprestanda; ESG-betyg; Företagens sociala ansvar (CSR); Socialt ansvarsfullainvesteringar (SRI); Institutionella investerare; Miljö- och social prestanda / Title: Institutional investors preferences on ES-criteria Level: Student thesis, final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration Author: Melisa Tatarevic and Alexandra Berg Nordström Supervisor: Jan Svanberg Date: 2022 - January Aim: Stakeholders' increased need for transparency in environmental, social and governance issueshas given great importance to sustainability reporting worldwide. This study aims to investigatewheather institutional ownership depends on ES criteria and sheds new light on research by focusingon both positive and negative aspects of ES criteria. Does institutional ownership increase/decreasedue to the presence of policies in companies? Is there a link between the ESG rating and policies? Method: With secondary data from the Refinitiv Eikon database, this quantitative study with crosssectional design analyzed 2653 public companies in the IBM: s statistics program SPSS. The studypresents descriptive statistics, a correlation matrix, control of error sources and regression analyzes. Result & Conclusions: The study provides evidence that institutional ownership mainly increases inthe presence of specific policies. However, institutional ownership decreases in the presence of aspecific policy. The study also finds support for an existing link between ESG ratings and policies. Contribution of the thesis: The study contributes new information to the research within the ESGrating and for institutional investors through a unique approach to studying institutional investors'preferences for different ES criteria with a focus on both strengths and weaknesses. Suggestions for future research: Quantitative research can answer whether similar results had beenachieved by choosing other indicators. Qualitative research can explain how they actually considerES criteria and its indicators when making investment decisions. Key words: Sustainability performance; ESG Score; Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); SocialResponsibility Investments (SRI); Institutional investors; Environmental and social performance