Background and problem: Sustainabilty reporting is about companies reporting their work on economic, social and environmental aspects. An industry that is under great pressure on a number of sustainability issues is the automotive industry. For this reason, various stakeholders have also submitted demands on the car companies, which in turn means that the companies in this industry run a greater risk of damaging their reputation when reporting their CSR work. The global framework GRI provides guidelines that the company can follow when preparing their sustainability reports and according to GRI, companies must report both positive and negative information in the sustainability report. However, the reporting of negative information creates a dilemma for companies because it jeopardizes companies' legitimacy. Because legitimacy is a neccessity for a company's survival, companies tend to present negative information in a strategic way so that it does not damage their legitimacy. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how companies in the automotive industry report negative information Method:This study was conducted in the form of a muliple case study. Furthermore, a qualitative method has been used with quantitative elements where a targeted content analysis has been performed on the companies' sustainability reports. The collected data has been entered into an encoding scheme and an encoding manual has benn used. Conclusion: Based on the study's empirical data and analysis, it can be stated that the companies surveyed use legitimacy strategies when reporting negatives information in the sustainability reports. This is done by companies for the purpose of maintaining, creating or repairing legitimacy. / Bakgrund & Problem: Hållbarhetsredovisning handlar om att företagen ska redovisa deras arbete gällande ekonomiska, sociala och miljömässiga aspekter. En industri som är under stort tryck på ett flertal hållbarhetsfrågor är bilindustrin. Av denna anledning har också olika intressenter lagt fram krav på bilföretagen, vilket i sin tur innebär att företagen inom denna industri löper en större risk av att skada sitt rykte vid redovisningen av deras CSR-arbete. Det globala ramverket GRI tillhandahåller riktlinjer som företagen kan följa vid upprättandet av deras hållbarhetsrapporter och enligt GRI ska företag ska redovisa både positiv samt negativ information i hållbarhetsredovisningen. Redovisningen av negativ information skapar dock ett dilemma för företagen eftersom det äventyrar företagens legitimitet. På grund av att legitimitet är en nödvändighet för ett företags överlevnad tenderar företagen att presentera negativ information på ett strategiskt sätt för att inte skada deras legitimitet.  Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur företagen inom bilindustrin redovisar negativ information.  Metod: Denna studie är genomförd i form av en flerfallsstudie. Vidare har en kvalitativmetod använts med kvantitativa inslag där en riktad innehållsanalys har utförts på företagens hållbarhetsredovisningar. Den insamlade datan har förts in i ett kodningsschema och en kodningsmanual har använts.  Slutsats: Utifrån studiens empiri och analys kan det konstateras attde undersökta företagen använder legitimitetsstrategier vid redovisningen av negativ information i hållbarhetsrapporteringen. Detta gör företagen i syfte av att behålla, skapa eller reparera legitimitet.

Content: In today’s business environment, organisations are increasingly reporting their sustainability credentials through different channels. However, in a traditional industry with a complex supply chain as leather, many companies do not publicly disclose details of their sustainability activities, while a considerable number of companies report on the environmental sustainability aspect alone. Hence, this study identifies good practices of sustainability reporting, discussing the sustainability information extracted from the reports of a selected number of companies in the leather industry. A thematic content analysis was used to extract sustainability information from either the website, annual report, sustainability report or corporate social responsibility report of six leather companies. A review of existing literature assisted in categorising different practices under the three sustainability dimensions while a highlight of patterns among practices followed. The results show that the companies are observing a good practice of either dedicating a section of their website to revealing their sustainability activities or utilising their sustainability reports. Additionally, these companies follow a good practice of reporting their activities based on the economic, social and environmental sustainability dimensions, rather than focusing on just one of the aspects. Amongst the six companies, energy efficiency and reduction in greenhouse gases emission were the most occurring environmental sustainability practices. On the other hand, health and safety occurred as the dominant social sustainability practice of the leather industry, while economic sustainability practices have not been well defined, providing an opportunity for future research. Conclusively, the study provides a useful resource for managers and companies in the leather industry to learn from brands that have been embarking on sustainability efforts and assist them in getting a grasp of the concept, in readiness for strategy formulation, implementation and reporting. This study provides knowledge of the sustainability criteria to be met by small, medium sized and large leather supply chain actors on their sustainability journey. Take-Away: 1. The companies are observing a good practice of either dedicating a section of their website to revealing their sustainability activities or utilising their sustainability reports. 2. The companies also follow a good practice of reporting their activities based on the economic, social and environmental sustainability dimensions, rather than focusing on just one of the aspects. 3. Energy efficiency and reduction in greenhouse gases emission were the most popular environmental sustainability practices, health and safety was the dominant social sustainability practice while economic sustainability practices have not been well defined.

Nowadays, sustainability has become a well-known and popular topic which has drawn the attention of many people worldwide. To fulfill their responsibility towards sustainability, the business world is shifting from an accounting-based accountability to an accountability-based accounting. Every renowned organization publishes their non- financial report, but quality of these reports is questionable. For the lack of a uniform structure, non-financial reports have become too complicated for some of the stakeholders to understand. To make things worse, the business entities publish non- financial reports highlighting their positive impacts but hide the negative aspects. However, these issues could not resist the interest of the stakeholders, rather they observe different independent index providers to know about the sustainability. We know non- financial reporting is not about figures rather it is about disclosures. However, it is very difficult to collect information from a non-financial report and compare them among industry peers. Therefore, we intend to examine if it is important to formulate a unique structure for the non-financial reporting.Though non-financial reporting is very different from financial reporting, it is very difficult for the readers to get the real picture of sustainability of any organization. The quality measurement of non-financial reports is a daunting task. To get a clear picture we collected the non-financial information of 12 automobile manufacturing groups from different geographical locations. We also observed 5 annual reports for each company and formulated our own index and conducted a quantitative study to answer our research question.We collected data from non-financial reports of our selected automobile companies to formulate our own index and collected index of these companies from the website of S&P Global. From the non-financial report, we also collected data about the length of the report, number of years compared for performance indicators, and if the report is audited or not. We collected the data about total asset of these companies and their return on asset.With the help of our theoretical framework where we discussed about CSR, stockholder theory, and legitimacy theory and formulated two hypotheses. To answer these hypotheses, we run a regression test to see if the variables used in our study have any predictable relationship or not. Hence we tested our data and concluded that it is important to formulate a unique structure for non-financial reporting.Non-financial reporting has come a long way since its appearance but to go even further and to fulfill the demand of the stakeholders, publishing such reports is not enough. Companies who publish such reports also need to ensure the quality and comparability. Though different organizations have different sustainability challenges, at least non- financial reports of a particular industry should follow a certain structure so that these reports can be compared.

Background: Corporate Social Responsibility has been studied since the 1970s, but was originally controversial and met opposition from e.g. Milton Friedman who viewed a company’s responsibility as being strictly economic. Since then, CSR has grown in scope and importance, especially within the fast fashion industry, and is now a central part of academia and business operations. However, the debate whether companies’ responsibilities are only economic or also include responsibilities such as social, environmental, and transparency- related is still ongoing, and it is therefore interesting to study how companies view their own responsibilities. Purpose: Our research aims to fill the existing research gap regarding how companies view their responsibilities by providing an overview of how the CSR work has changed over time in fast fashion companies. Research Question: How has the focus of the CSR work changed over time in large, international, fast-fashion companies? Methods: A qualitative content analysis inspired by grounded theory was used to answer the research question. The data material consisted of H&M’s sustainability reports from 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2019. The material was categorized into social, environmental or transparency dimensions, along with several under-categories. A simpler analysis of news articles regarding sustainability during the period 2002-2019 was also performed. Results: The results suggest that the fast fashion industry has increased their sense of responsibility as the expectations of stakeholders in the area has grown, and that CSR work increasingly is seen as a possible competitive advantage. The results also show that the most difficult parts to fulfill is the ethical level of the CSR pyramid, due to the difficulty of comprehending and fulfilling the stakeholders’ different expectations and demands, and the social dimension, because of its profound complexity, especially within fast-fashion.

Syftet med studien har varit att undersöka och analysera hållbarhetsredovisningens förändring samt incitamenten bakom åtagandet av frivillig hållbarhetsredovisning i svenska kommuner. Utgångsläget för studien har varit att förklara hur kommunernas hållbarhetsredovisning har utvecklats och harmoniserats under perioden 2015–2019 samt vilka incitament som ligger bakom kommunernas frivilliga hållbarhetsredovisning. För att besvara studiens syfte och problemformulering har empiri samlats in genom en innehållsanalys av kommunernas hållbarhets- och årsredovisningar samt intervjuer. Innehållsanalysen har utförts på fem svenska kommuner och intervjuer har utförts med tre respondenter från hållbarhetsavdelningar i tre av studiens fem granskade kommuner.   I analysen har insamlad empiri tolkats med hjälp av den teoretiska referensramen, vilken behandlar intressentteorin och legitimitetsteorin. Resultatet påvisar att kommunernas redovisningsform i de frivilliga hållbarhetsredovisningarna har utvecklats genom en övergång till separata hållbarhetsredovisningar. Resultatet konstaterar även att det sker ett skifte i kommunernas tillämpning av redovisningsstandard till att tillämpa SDG som redovisningsstandard i kommunernas hållbarhetsredovisningar. Till följd av övergången till tillämpningen av SDG som redovisningsstandard har antalet upplysta SDG:er ökat i majoriteten av kommunernas hållbarhetsredovisningar. Även upplysningsformen har förändrats genom en ökning av kvantifierade upplysningar, vilka redovisas verbalt i kombination med mätetal. Det framgår även en påtaglig ökning av harmonisering av hållbarhetsredovisning i kommunerna mellan åren 2015–2019. Både den formella och materiella harmoniseringen tilltar. Det primära incitamentet bakom kommunernas frivilliga hållbarhetsredovisning är uppdraget från politikerna som är kommunernas primära intressenter. De sekundära incitamenten framgick att vara påvisande av legitimitet och ansvarsskyldighet. / The purpose of this study was to examine and analyze the change in sustainability reporting as well as the incentives behind the commitment of voluntary sustainability reporting in municipalities. The initial point for the study was to explain how the municipalities' sustainability reports have developed and harmonized during the period 2015–2019 and what incentives are behind the municipalities' voluntary sustainability report. To answer the study's purpose and problem formulation, empirical data have been collected through content analysis of the municipalities' sustainability and annual reports and interviews. The content analysis was conducted in five Swedish municipalities and interviews were conducted with three respondents from sustainability departments in three of the study's five municipalities.   In the analysis, collected empirics have been interpreted with the help of the theoretical framework which deals with stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory. The result shows that the municipalities' form of accounting in the voluntary sustainability reports has been developed through a clear transition to separate sustainability reports. The result also clarifies that there is a shift in the municipalities' application of accounting standard to applying SDG as the accounting standard in the municipalities' sustainability reports. As a result of the transition to the application of SDG as the accounting standard, the number of informed SDGs has increased in the majority of the municipalities' sustainability reports. The form of information has also been changed through an increase in quantified information, which is reported verbally in combination with measurements. There is also a marked increase in the harmonization of sustainability reporting in the municipalities between the years 2015–2019. Both formal and material harmonization are increasing. The primary incentive behind the municipalities' voluntary sustainability report is the assignment from the politicians who are the municipalities' primary stakeholders. The secondary incentives proved to be legitimacy and accountability.

Hållbarhetsredovisning har under de senaste åren kommit att öka vilket har resulterat i en större efterfrågan på en extern part som granskar hållbarhetsrapporten. Efterfrågan av hållbarhetsgranskningar har medfört nya områden att granska i kombination med nya utmaningar för revisionsyrket. Tidigare forskning visar att det finns utmaningar med hållbarhetsgranskningen men går inte in på hur granskningarna går till i praktiken. Syftet med studien är att skapa en djupare förståelse för hur hållbarhetsspecialister arbetar vid en granskning av hållbarhetsrapporter samt vad som ligger till grund för arbetsprocessen.     Genom att utföra kvalitativa intervjuer med sex hållbarhetsspecialister har en förståelse skapats för hur en hållbarhetsgranskning går till, vilka faktorer som är mest väsentliga samt vilka utmaningar de upplever vid en granskning av hållbarhetsrapporter. Respondenterna presenterade flera aspekter som tidigare forskning inte identifierat som väsentliga faktorer att ta hänsyn till. Vidare fick respondenterna redogöra för sin känsla av komfort till granskningen vilket applicerar komfortteorin på hållbarhetsgranskning.   Studiens slutsatser är att arbetsprocessen vid en hållbarhetsgranskning inte skiljer sig markant ifrån en finansiell revision. De faktorer som respondenterna uppgav påverkar arbetsprocessen var liknande som tidigare litteratur har behandlat och centreras kring faktorer gällande det granskade företaget. Utmaningarna som respondenterna upplever involverar till stor del aspekter som har en negativ inverkan på arbetet där de också har begränsad möjlighet att påverka det. / Sustainability reporting has increased during the latter years, which has resulted in greater demand for an external part that assures such reports. The demand for sustainability assurance has created new areas of assurance in combination with new challenges for the audit profession. Previous research shows that there are challenges with sustainability assurance but does not focus on how assurance is actually performed. The purpose of this thesis is to create a deeper understanding of how the assurance providers work with sustainability reports and what influence the process.   By conducting qualitative interviews with six sustainability experts, an understanding has been gained of how sustainability assurance is conducted, what factors are the most significant and what challenges these experts experience when assuring sustainability reports. The respondents present several aspects that previous research did not identify as factors to take into account. Furthermore, the respondents gave their account of comfort for the assurance which applies comfort theory to sustainability assurance.   The study´s conclusions are that the work processes within sustainability assurance do not differ significantly from financial audits. The factors stated by the respondents that influence the work process were similar to previous literature and are centered around factors regarding the client. The challenges that the respondents experience involve mostly aspects that have a negative impact on the work and where they have a limited opportunity to affect the situation.

Intressenter är allt mer engagerade kring miljön vilket har bidragit till att det har blivit viktigare för intressenter att göra hållbara beslut. Att företag tar hänsyn till sina intressenter och redovisar sitt arbete gällande hållbara frågor i en hållbarhetsrapport kan bidra till att företaget uppnår legitimitet, vilket kan vara avgörande för deras överlevnad. För att intressenter skall kunna ta beslut eller investera i företag vill de kunna jämföra företag emellan, detta för att kunna fatta dem rätta besluten oavsett vad det gäller. Men då riktlinjerna för hur företag skall eller bör rapportera är många kan det betyda att resultatet kan variera stort och påverka jämförbarheten. Global Reporting Initiative är det mest använda ramverket inom hållbarhetsrapportering, men är endast ett hjälpmedel med riktlinjer för hur rapporteringen bör gå till. Syftet med denna studie var därför att undersöka om hållbarhetsrapporter, med ramverket GRI, påverkar intressenters tolkning och jämförelse mellan företag.    För att uppnå syftet med studien och kunna besvara frågan genomfördes sju semistrukturerade intervjuer. Genom att studera två anonyma företags hållbarhetsrapporter fick respondenterna besvara frågor angående jämförbarhet, tolkning och legitimitet. Genom att analysera respondenternas svar utifrån legitimitetsteorin, intressentteorin och jämförbarhet resulterade studien i att sex av sju respondenter ansåg att rapporterna avvek väldigt mycket från varandra, varav den ena var bristfällig gällande många aspekter. De hade svårt att tolka och förstå den ena rapporten vilket också bidrog till att det i princip var omöjligt att uppnå legitimitet och jämförbarhet för dessa företag. Respondenterna hade önskat att det fanns en standard och standardiserade nyckeltal för att lättare uppnå jämförbarhet. Detta tyder på att behovet av ett tydligt och mer följdriktigt ramverk kan vara betydande för att öka legitimiteten, trovärdigheten och jämförbarheten i rapporterna. / The topic of sustainability is a topic that most people are familiar with. But something that is relatively new and foreign to most is sustainability reporting.  companies report how they work on issues related to the environment, social conditions, staff, respect for human rights and countering corruption. Reporting this to its stakeholders can be significant as it displays and create legitimacy and be crucial to the company's existence. Stakeholders also want to be able to compare companies in order to make the right decisions, but this can be problematic as there are several ways to report the same matter. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to investigate how comparability and legitimacy are affected based on how companies prepare their sustainability report. What the study finds is that legitimacy and comparability are negatively affected by the few guidelines that currently prevail.

The topic of sustainability has never been as relevant as it is today. Most recently, we have been following climate activists strike worldwide, the U.S. withdraw from the Paris Agreement and we have seen the world elite leave climate meetings without agreements. In 2015, to cope with the sustainability issues, the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for global actions to protect the planet and assure a better future for humanity. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 SDGs are set to ensure social, economic, and environmental progress at a global level. For a worldwide advance in progress has the private sector a leading role, and to ensure an effective framework of goals and a balance between the three dimensions are the standards adopted in dialogue with the private sector. The adoption of agendas and regulations has stressed sustainability reporting to become an important business issue for the last two decades. Although sustainability reporting emerged quite recently, the topic has been well researched. Recent research has been focusing on shareholder value and sustainability reporting. However, there is a lack of research focusing on the other stakeholder groups. This study intends to investigate what internal stakeholders of an organization in the private sector consider as important reporting activities following the Global Reporting Standards (GRI). This study is written on commission, hence does the sample consist of the commissioner’s employees. To fulfill the purpose of the study, a survey was conducted and distributed among the internal stakeholders of the organization. The results of the study found the social sustainability activities to be the most important ones to report, followed by the environmental sustainability activities and the economic sustainability activities. Any possible differences between different subgroups of the population (gender, age, employment, and position at work) were tested by establishing two-sample t-tests and a one-way Analysis of Variance. The gender-, age- and position at work variable showed significance, rejecting the null hypothesis that the mean responses are equal.

Sammanfattning Titel: Revisionskommittéers påverkan på hållbarhetsrapporters tillförlitlighet: En kvantitativ studie på 298 börsnoterade företag i en low-litigation kontext. Nivå: Examensarbete på grundnivå i ämnet företagsekonomi (kandidatexamen). Författare: Albin Eriksson, Philip Lindholm Handledare: Jan Svanberg Datum: 2022-05-31 Syfte: Förekomsten av hållbarhetsrapportering externt granskad av tredje part har, i tidigare studier tolkats som väsentligt hos större företag, eftersom de i dess intressenters ögon önskar framstå som tillförlitliga och legitima. Detta eftersom revisorer som granskar rapporteringen kännetecknas av ett oberoende gentemot verksamheten. Då tidigare studier endast utförts inom en institutionell kontext kännetecknad av hög risk för stämning vid felaktiga beslut blir det intressant att jämföra dessa resultat med en miljö där granskare har friare tyglar. Syftet med denna studie är därför att undersöka huruvida revisionskommittéers granskning av hållbarhetsrapporteringen påverkar dess tillförlitlighet i en annan institutionell kontext, nämligen en lägre litigationsnivå än hos den befintliga litteraturen inom ämnet.   Metod: Studien baseras på den positivistiska forskningsfilosofin med en hypotetisk-deduktiv ansats. Studien har en kvantitativ strategi där 298 börsnoterade företag ligger till grund för sekundärdata genererad från databasen Thomson Reuters Eikon. Vidare har datamaterialet bearbetats och analyserats i statistikprogrammet SPSS.     Resultat och slutsats: Studiens resultat påvisar ett positivt samband mellan revisionskommittéers förekomst och hållbarhetsrapporters tillförlitlighet. Vi finner även att finansiell expertis inom revisionskommittéer har ett positivt samband med hållbarhetsrapporters tillförlitlighet. Revisionskommittéernas oberoende inom studiens institutionella kontext indikeras ha ett negativt samband med hållbarhetsrapporters tillförlitlighet.   Examensarbetets bidrag: Studien bidrar till att fylla forskningsgapet för revisionskommittéernas påverkan på hållbarhetsrapporteringen inom en low-litigation kontext. Studien gynnar även litteraturen om sambandet mellan revisionskommittéers karaktärsdrag och hållbarhetsrapporters tillförlitlighet, samtidigt som den avser ligga till grund för framtida forskning. Resultatet bidrar med värdefull teoretisk information till den företagsekonomiska forskningen gällande sambandet mellan extern granskning och företagens legitimitet.    Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Förslag till framtida forskning är att utföra en liknande typ av studie i denna institutionella kontext där fler av revisionskommittéernas främsta karaktärsdrag tas i åtanke, eftersom det möjligtvis kan innebära en annorlunda påverkan på tillförlitligheten.   Nyckelord: SRA, hållbarhetsrapportering, revisionskommittéer och low-litigation / Abstract Title: Audit committee impact on the credibility of sustainability reporting: A quantitative study of 298 public companies in a low-litigation context. Level: Student thesis, final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration  Authors: Albin Eriksson, Philip Lindholm Supervisor: Jan Svanberg Date: 2022-05-31 Aim: The existence of externally assured sustainability reporting by a third party, have in previous studies been interpreted as essential by bigger companies since they, in their stakeholder’s eyes, wish to appear as reliable and legitimate. This because the auditors that review the reporting are characterized by an independence towards the company. Since previous studies have only been implemented within an institutional context characterized by greater risk in case of wrongdoings it becomes interesting to compare these results with an environment where auditors have more space to act. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine whether audit committees review of sustainability reporting affects its reliability in a different institutional context, namely a lower litigation level than in the subject's existing literature.   Method: The study is based on the positivist philosophy of research with a hypothetical-deductive approach. The study has a quantitative strategy where 298 listed companies are the basis for secondary data generated from the database Thomson Reuters Eikon. Furthermore, the data material has been processed and analyzed in the statistical program SPSS.    Result and Conclusions: The results of the study show a positive relationship between the audit committees external review and the reliability of sustainability reports. We also find that financial expertise within audit committees is positively related to the reliability of sustainability reports. The independence of the audit committees within the institutional context of the study is indicated to have a negative relationship with the reliability of sustainability reports.   Contribution of the thesis: The study fills the research gap for audit committees impact on sustainability reporting in a low-litigation context. The study also benefits the literature on the relationship between the characteristics of audit committees and the reliability of sustainability reports, at the same time as it intends to form the basis for future research. The results contribute valuable theoretical information to the business economics research regarding the connection between external review and the company’s legitimacy.   Suggestions for future research: Suggestions for further research are to carry out a similar type of study within this institutional context where several of the audit committees main characteristics are taken into account, as this may have a different impact on reliability.   Key words: SRA, sustainability reporting, audit committees and low-litigation

Purpose The purpose of the thesis is to contribute toward establishing the relationship between the concepts of sustainability reporting, sustainability performance, and sustainability reputation.This will be done by investigating the causal relationships between these concepts and whether those relationships are negative or positive. Methodology The study is based on a positivistic philosophy with a deductive approach. By using a quantitative method and a longitudinal design, the causal influences from the independent variables in 2019 to the dependent variables in 2020 could be investigated in a sample of 99 companies. This was done by 297 firm-year observations for measuring sustainability performance, and by 198 firm-year observations for measuring sustainability reputation and sustainability reporting respectively. Secondary data from the agency SB Insight together with primary data from companies’ sustainability reports and annual reports were mainly tested by a multiple linear regression model. Findings The findings show that sustainability reporting is negatively affected by sustainability performance and indicate that the causality is unilateral from sustainability performance tosustainability reporting. Sustainability reputation is positively affected by sustainability reporting, but sustainability reporting is in addition positively affected by sustainability reputation, indicating a bidirectional relationship where the causality remains unsolved. The findings show no significant association between sustainability performance and sustainability reputation. Furthermore, the thesis suggests a new concept to the research field, namely the reporting-reputation-spiral. Theoretical Perspectives The study analyzed the results through the legitimacy theory, the stakeholder theory, the voluntary disclosure theory, and the signal theory