A partir da década de 1990, as empresas começaram a se envolver em iniciativas voluntárias com vistas à melhoria de suas práticas socioambientais. Dentre os principais motivadores para isso está a pressão exercida por alguns investidores, que têm incorporado critérios ambientais, sociais e de governança (ASG) a seus processos de tomada de decisão como requisitos para selecionar as empresas de seus portfólios. As bolsas de valores passaram a oferecer a esses investidores produtos de informação, como os índices de sustentabilidade, que têm como objetivo diferenciar as empresas com as melhores práticas neste tema. É nesse contexto que se situa o Índice de Sustentabilidade Empresarial (ISE) da BM&FBOVESPA, criado em 2005. Buscando garantir que as empresas do ISE sejam referência em sustentabilidade, um elemento essencial a sua análise é a inovação. Portanto, esta pesquisa busca analisar a existência, nas empresas do ISE, de práticas ligadas ao tema da inovação para a sustentabilidade. Por meio de pesquisa exploratória baseada em dados secundários, foram consideradas as empresas e as informações da carteira ISE 2015 e as diretrizes para interpretação da inovação do Manual de Oslo para definição das variáveis de análise e levantamento dos dados. Buscou-se contribuir para melhor compreender a relação entre inovação e sustentabilidade. Os resultados indicaram que as empresas do índice declaram possuir diversas práticas de inovação para a sustentabilidade. As práticas de inovação consideradas na metodologia do ISE estão presentes nas empresas listadas, mas não se configuram como um critério de seleção para o índice / From the 1990s, companies began to engage in voluntary initiatives aimed at improving their social and environmental practices. Among the main reasons for this behavior, there is the pressure exerted by some investors, who started to incorporate environmental, social and governance criteria (ESG) in their decision-making processes as requirements to select companies to their portfolios. Stock Exchanges began to offer to these investors information products, such as sustainability indexes, which aim to distinguish the companies with best practices in this area. In this context, the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE) of BM&FBOVESPA was created in 2005. To ensure that ISE companies are a benchmark in sustainability, an essential element of its analysis is the innovation. Therefore, this research seeks to analyze the existence, in the ISEs companies, of practices related to the theme of innovation for sustainability. Through exploratory research based on secondary data variables of analysis were defined, considering the ISE 2015 portfolio companies and responses, besides the guidelines for interpretation of innovation from the Oslo Manual. It sought to contribute to better understanding the relationship between innovation and sustainability. The results indicated that companies in the index have declared several innovative practices for sustainability. The innovation practices considered in the ISE methodology are present in the listed companies, but they are not a selection criterion for the indexs companies

This thesis focuses on a central behavioral paradox in the asset management community. Recent decades have brought an upsurge in initiatives throughout the investment community to voluntarily integrate sustainability issues into investment decisions. The financial crisis has however revealed behavioral inconsistency and deepening irresponsibility. Today, sustainable investments represent USD 10.7 trillion, or 7% of the entire market, of assets under management and it is growing steadily. <p>One important driver of this growth was the emergence of specialized research agencies that standardized measurement of companies’ environment, social, and governance (ESG) performance and sold such information as a tool to evaluate or pressure corporate conducts. More recently, sell-side research, financial news, and market-index providers joined the ESG information market, where they aim to support more mainstream asset managers in integrating ESG information into investment decisions. <p>A dominant assumption has taken hold in a large part of the investment and regulatory circles: asset managers’ use of ESG information will induce a behavioral change so that they automatically integrate companies’ sustainability to investment return concerns. Understandings of what constitutes sustainable investment have been largely practitioner-driven. The academic community took little interest to challenge the assumption. Remarkably, more scholars have come to assume that conformance to institutional pressures to add ESG information to investment strategies will induce more sustainable and long-term behavior of investors and companies. ESG information integration is believed to be a behavioral enabler for mainstream investors to systematically embed sustainability in investment strategies. Because of the assumption, theory building of asset manager intrinsic motivations to engage in sustainable investment remains unexplored. Main contribution of this research is to generate a deep theoretical understanding of asset manager non-conformance to the ESG pressure to engage in sustainable investment. <p>The research starts by questioning the dominant assumptions made in the sustainable investment field. While working in the industry, I witnessed some asset managers’ practices of replacing the externally defined ESG information with their own research based on narratives to better understand investee companies. The research question came out of this experience: why do some asset managers use ESG information to engage in sustainable investment while others do not? Do pressures to integrate ESG information really induce more sustainable behaviors on the part of asset managers? These self-inquiries led to a wide array of literature review to search for conformance and non-conformance drivers. Surprisingly, non-conformance was an under-researched theme. Given the scarcity of the research, I sought a method that would enable grounded theorizing based on asset managers’ own experience and interpretations. <p> Grounded theory research draws on asset manager interviews, archival documents, expert and practitioner consultations and feedback during 2007 and mid-2011. To reflect the global nature of sustainability, I focused on global equity asset managers working in thirteen institutions in three lead markets with most geographically diversified sustainable investment, UK, the Netherlands and Belgium. <p>Theory building from the ground up does not happen in vacuum. I developed a framework to study conformance and non-conformance drivers to facilitate the concept elicitation. The question of conformance and non-conformance has been studied by institutional, resource-based view of the firm, behavioral finance, cognitive and sensemaking theorists but in a disintegrated manner. I enhanced insights by way of aggregating and exploring the drivers. The framework illuminates the viability of both conformers and non-conformers in sustainable investment practices. Both are leadership activities of asset managers based respectively on explicit and implicit motivations. It illustrates short-term and opportunistic motivations of conforming managers, as opposed to long-term and substantial motivations of non-conforming managers to integrate sustainability and return-making in their investment decisions. <p>The research results presented hereafter provide a significant theoretical and empirical contribution. Drawing from insights and perspectives from the practitioners, a grounded theory model of asset manager conformance and non-conformance highlights a pivotal concept of sensemaking capacities. It reveals a counter intuitive pattern of asset manager learning. Non-conforming asset managers have developed a distinctive capacity to integrate sustainability and investment return concerns regardless of public pressures to do so. This distinctive sensemaking capacity, founded on behavioral integration of external expectations with own motivation, goal, competence and know-how, was the strategic resource for the organization. Their behavioral integration of sustainability and return generation is so highly developed, that adding the ESG information in their investment strategy would actually impair their capacity to make sense of sustainability. Indeed, I find that non-conforming asset manager teams have sustained consistent returns and increased client assets throughout the financial crisis. In absence of such behavioral integration and sensemaking capacities, conforming managers failed to sustain consistency or suffered from under-funding. To stay competitive, the latter managers have fervently demonstrated the ESG information use in their investment strategies. However, such explicit demonstration of leadership has not been accompanied by distinctive sensemaking capacities. I find that conforming managers were less capable of integrating sustainability and return-generation, which subsequently reinforced their short-termism and opportunism. <p>The finding of this thesis points to the importance of ‘behavioral integration’ instead of ‘explicit conformance’ of asset managers. The academic community may need to shed a more critical eye on ESG integration by asset managers. Institutional pressures to adopt such information may not induce more sustainable behavior, as ESG know-how is likely to deprive a chance to develop distinctive sensemaking capacities. Furthermore, it may even hurt the sensemaking capacities of managers who have behaviorally integrated sustainability and return-generation. While I hope to trigger a re-think amongst academics how to promote sustainable investment, my findings has theoretical and empirical contributions. The most important theoretical contribution is identification of non-conformance variables to engage intrinsically in sustainable investment. Empirical evidence on non-conformers, corroborated with resource-based view of the firm, also enhances the understanding of non-conformers’ motivation to sustain competitive advantage. <p>Findings also lead to managerial and policy implications. I carried out this research in the midst of the financial crisis, a time of mounting European policy debates how to build investor capacity to induce long-term and sustainable behaviors. The European Commission’s Internal Market Directorate-General is set to publish a directive proposal that mandate ESG information disclosure to companies and ESG reporting by investors. This adds weight to already published procedural measures to strengthen corporate governance at financial institutions. These policy initiatives emerged largely because of expert consultation and anecdotal evidences. In addition to recommendations to specific pieces of legislative proposals, this research makes an overarching policy proposal. The EU Commission needs to reexamine if the current policy measures lead to further symbolic demonstrations of ESG usage without accompanying sustainable behavior at the cost of real economy. EU equally needs to pay more attention to non-conforming asset managers’ distinctive capacities and enabling mechanisms. Reporting burdens may inadvertently impair non-conforming managers’ capacities to sustain long-term performance and may induce a contradictory policy consequence of increased public distrust. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is still an ongoing topic, broadly analysed and discussed in many studies. Recent articles state that sustainable assets can offer return volatility resilience during demand shock events and, in some cases, provide higher returns than their unsustainable counterparts. We set out to test such claims in our own controlled study. This paper is written from the perspective of a portfolio manager and examines four main variables: share/token prices, log returns, volatility, and trading volumes in a difference-indifference statistical regression in order to compare the performance of sustainable and unsustainable portfolios in the context of the market shock suffered on March 11, 2020. We are using both a traditional asset, stocks, and a non-traditional asset, cryptocurrencies, therefore analysing a total of four investment portfolios. The present study aims to help fill in a gap in the current literature regarding the extension of the flight-to-quality theory to sustainable and unsustainable assets, treating sustainable stocks and cryptocurrencies as our safer assets and unsustainable stocks and cryptocurrencies as our riskier assets. Method results uncover that, on the surface, a sustainable equity portfolio does indeed seem to have lower return volatility and less negative average returns post-WHO announcement compared to an unsustainable equity portfolio, but a deeper statistical analysis indicates that a high ESG score is not the main factor influencing such performance. Sustainable cryptocurrency portfolio results uncover a different picture of significantly lower average returns and higher return volatility post-event compared to the unsustainable crypto portfolio. However, the PoS sustainability factor is not the main suspect in the poor performance indicated by the statistical analysis. The flight-to-quality cannot be extended to sustainable assets due to the lack of significant evidence and the performance dynamics of the average returns. Our analysis finds that the sustainability factor alone does not provide a benefit to portfolio managers and investors in the context of equity and alternative asset classes. This paper contributes empirical evidence to the green finance theory and puts forward relevant advice for investment policy statement consideration.

Kapital- och finansmarknadens beskrivs inneha en viktig roll i omställningen till ett hållbart samhälle och särskilt i den svenska bygg- och fastighetssektorn som idag står för en stor del utav de totala växthusgasutsläppen. Kapital åsidosatt till hållbara investeringar, s.k. grön finansiering, har ända sedan den första gröna obligationen emitterades år 2008 kraftigt växt i volym och lockat till intresse. De svenska fastighetsbolagen har särskilt anammat gröna finansieringsprodukter som gröna lån/obligationer. Med anledning av detta är syftet med denna studie att utvärdera hur svenska fastighetsbolag tillämpat gröna finansieringsinstrument och om det faktiskt leder till en miljöförbättring. För att uppfylla studiens syfte utgår studien från två frågeställningar. Den första frågeställningen innefattar tillämpningen av grön finansiering hos svenska fastighetsbolag. Den andra mäter sambandet mellan andelen grön finansiering och miljöprestation hos fastighetsbolagen. Studien genomförs genom både kvalitativa metoder i form av litteraturstudier, dokumentstudier och intervjustudier samt kvantitativa metoder i form av regressionsanalyser. Resultatet från de kvalitativa studierna tyder på att fastighetsbolag använder grön finansiering på grund av det signalvärde och de varumärkesbyggande effekterna som det medför. Resultatet i regressionsanalysen visar på att sambandet mellan andelen grön finansiering och miljörelaterade nyckeltal som energianvändning, koldioxidutsläpp och vattenförbrukning är svagt. Ett starkt samband kan dock konstateras mellan andelen miljöcertifierade fastigheter och andelen grön finansiering. Slutsatserna som dras i studien antyder på att grön finansiering inte är ett tillräckligt tillförlitligt mått på hur miljövänligt ett fastighetsbolag är. Vidare konstateras det att miljöcertifierade byggnader eller projekt har en högre sannolikhet att finansieras genom grön finansiering. Fastighetsbolagen antas även engagera sig i användandet av grön finansiering av antingen CSR skäl i hopp om att det på längre sikt ska visa sig lönsamt eller för att stärka fastighetsbolagets varumärkesprofil. / The capital and financial markets are being described as having an important role in the transition to a sustainable society and especially in the Swedish construction and real estate sector, which today accounts for a large part of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Capital regarded for sustainable investments, so-called green financing, has since the first green bond issued in 2008 grown strongly in volume and attracted interest. The Swedish real estate companies have especially adopted green financing products such as green loans / bonds. Due to this, the purpose of this study is to evaluate how Swedish real estate companies have applied these forms of green financing and whether it leads to an environmental improvement. To fulfill the purpose of the study, the study is based on two questions. The first question covers the application of green financing by Swedish real estate companies. The second measures the relationship between the proportion of green financing and environmental performance of the real estate companies. The study is carried out through both qualitative methods in the form of literature studies, document studies and interview studies as well as quantitative methods in the form of regression analyzes. The results from the qualitative studies indicate that real estate companies use green financing due to the signal value and the brand-building effects that it entails. The results of the regression analysis show that the relationship between the share of green financing and environmental-related key figures such as energy use, carbon dioxide emissions and water consumption is weak. However, a strong connection can be found between the proportion of environmentally certified properties and the proportion of green financing. The conclusions drawn in the study suggest that green financing is not a sufficiently reliable measure of how environmentally friendly a real estate company is. Furthermore, it is stated that environmentally certified buildings or projects have a higher probability of being financed through green financing. The real estate companies are also assumed to be involved in the use of green financing for either CSR reasons in the hope that it will prove profitable in the long term or to strengthen the real estate company's brand profile.

Submitted by denys roman (denys_roman@yahoo.com) on 2018-08-29T22:51:25Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TA Denys - V29 de Julho.pdf: 2148232 bytes, checksum: 2f16875e1900c5b431bbcc02d057dd8e (MD5) / Rejected by Simone de Andrade Lopes Pires (simone.lopes@fgv.br), reason: Boa Tarde Denys, Recebemos seu trabalho na biblioteca digital, mas será necessário fazer alguns ajustes: Estou encaminhando por e-mail as alterações necessárias. Por favor, faça as alterações e submeta o trabalho novamente na biblioteca digital. Atenciosamente, Simone - SRA on 2018-08-30T20:48:27Z (GMT) / Submitted by denys roman (denys_roman@yahoo.com) on 2018-08-31T13:07:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TA Denys - V30 de Julho (2003)_corrigido.pdf: 2107428 bytes, checksum: 58f618ad30b083f6bf09aba20e9554c8 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Simone de Andrade Lopes Pires (simone.lopes@fgv.br) on 2018-09-03T19:37:52Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TA Denys - V30 de Julho (2003)_corrigido.pdf: 2107428 bytes, checksum: 58f618ad30b083f6bf09aba20e9554c8 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzane Guimarães (suzane.guimaraes@fgv.br) on 2018-09-04T14:01:28Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TA Denys - V30 de Julho (2003)_corrigido.pdf: 2107428 bytes, checksum: 58f618ad30b083f6bf09aba20e9554c8 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-04T14:01:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TA Denys - V30 de Julho (2003)_corrigido.pdf: 2107428 bytes, checksum: 58f618ad30b083f6bf09aba20e9554c8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-02 / O presente trabalho visa explorar se as blockchains poderiam ser utilizadas para gerar maior confiança na asseguração de dados ESG – Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (em português: Ambiental, Social e Governança Corporativa), visando apoiar o desenvolvimento da indústria do investimento sustentável. No desenvolvimento do trabalho, demonstramos o crescimento da indústria do investimento sustentável. Com a utilização de fatores ESG na avaliação de ativos, os registros desse fenômeno foram evidenciados tanto com dados de agentes do mercado de capitais quanto com dados da produção acadêmicocientífica. Também abordamos a possibilidade de fortalecimento da qualidade das informações ESG e sua asseguração externa para evitar potencial perda de valor das companhias em função de assimetria informacional. Para respondermos ao problema de pesquisa, foi realizado um estudo de caso que teve como unidade de análise a forma como a OriginalMy utiliza as blockchains para autenticação de dados. Esse estudo de caso foi precedido de etapas preliminares, em que foi desenvolvida uma prova de conceito para ampliar a familiaridade com a tecnologia e entrevistas com os asseguradores de informações ESG. O estudo apontou lacunas no processo de asseguração e que as características das blockchains permitem que a tecnologia sirva de base para soluções que necessitem garantir a autenticidade de dados. Dessa forma, podem apoiar o desenvolvimento da indústria de investimento sustentável baseado em dados mais confiáveis e robustos. / This paper aims to explore how blockchains can be used to generate greater confidence in ESG data – Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance, in order to support the development of the sustainable investment industry. We demonstrate the growth of the sustainable investment industry, with the use of ESG factors in the assets valuation, the records of this phenomenon were evidenced both with data from capital market agents and with data from academic-scientific production. We also discuss the possibility of strengthening the quality of ESG information and its external assurance to avoid potential loss of value of companies due to informational asymmetry. To respond the research problem, a case study was conducted that analyzed how OriginalMy uses the blockchains for data authentication. This case study was preceded by preliminary steps, in which a proof of concept was developed to increase familiarity with the technology and interviews with ESG information insurers. The study pointed to gaps in the assurance process and that the characteristics of blockchains allow the technology to serve as the basis for solutions that need to guarantee the authenticity of data. In this way, they can support the development of the sustainable investment industry based on more reliable and robust data.

In this thesis, the traditional methods of only using ESG scores to screen stocks for sustainable portfolios is broadened. The selection of securities for portfolios will instead depend on aggregation, weighting and normalization of a wider set of sustainability variables, in turn creating more all-encompassing sustainability scores. Using these scores, the aim is to implement them in index tracking portfolios. These portfolios combines a hybrid approach between active and passive investment, with the aim of creating sustainable enhanced index funds that can beat the index without adding significant risk. Additionally, this allows for comparison of how different combinations and levels of sustainability affects returns, risk and index tracking. The results that are obtained shows that in the scenario presented in the thesis, it is possible to create a sustainability score which both increases the average sustainability of portfolios, and yields risk adjusted returns. We also studied how a net increase in sustainability scores over a control portfolio results in higher active returns, and eventually a small drop off in information ratio as we apply too strong of a sustainability constraint to our portfolios. The combination of sustainability scores which showed the highest risk adjusted returns was created using equal parts z-scored ESG ratings, ESG risk ratings and ESG momentum. / Detta examensarbete breddar de traditionella metoderna för att skapa hållbara portföljer. Genom att basera urvalet av aktier på aggregering, viktande och normalisering av ett större set av hållbarhetsvariabler, jämfört med traditionell screening baserad på endast ESG betyg, skapas mer omfattande hållbarhetsbetyg. Syftet med studien är att implementera dessa hållbarhetsbetyg vid skapandet av index-portföljer och analysera resultaten. Dessa portföljer kombinerar då både aktiva och passiva investeringsprinciper, med målet att skapa hållbara indexnära fonder som kan prestera bättre än indexet, utan signifikant höjd risk. Dessa hållbarhetsbetyg tillåter även jämförelse av hur olika kombinationer och nivåer av hållbarhet påverkar avkastning, risk och närhet till index. Resultaten visar tydligt att det, inom uppsatsens avgränsningar, är möjligt att skapa hållbarhetsbetyg som ökar både hållbarheten av portföljer i snitt, och skapar riskjusterad avkastning. Det visar även hur en relativ höjning av hållbarhetsbetygen resulterar i högra aktiv avkastning jämfört med en kontroll-portfölj. Vid en viss nivå av höjning sker dock en avtappning av den riskjusterade avkastningen. Den kombinationen av hållbarhetsvariabler som visar högst riskjusterad avkastning när de aggregeras till ett hållbarhetsbetyg är en kombination, i lika delar, av ESG betyg, ESG risk och ESG momentum.

Modern society is faced with the complex and intractable challenge of global warming, along with other environmental issues that could potentially alter our way of life if not managed properly. Is it possible that financial markets and equity investors could have a huge part to play in the transformation towards a greener and more sustainable world? Previous studies about investment strategies regarding sustainability have for the most part been centered around possibly less objective ESG-scores or around carbon and GHG-emissions only, with little or no consideration for water usage and waste management. This thesis aims to amend to the previous work on carbon reducing strategies and ESG-investing with the addition of water usage and waste management, especically using raw data of these measures instead of ESG-ratings. Index replicating portfolios have become more and more popular as it proves harder and harder to beat the index, offering good returns along with cheap and uncomplicated portfolio construction and management. In a trending market, the fear of missing out and the demand for market return can make an index replicating strategy a way for investors to have market exposure but still remain diversied and without confusion about which horses to bet on. This thesis studies the relationship between tracking-error and the increase of sustainability in a portfolio through reduction of the intensity of carbon emissions, water usages and poor waste management. To be able to make a fair comparison, these measures are normalized by dividing each measure by the reported annual revenue. These three obtained intensities are then implemented individually, as well as all together into index replicating portfolios in order to study the effect from decreasing them. First and foremost we study the effect on the tracking-error, but also the effects on returns and volatility. We also study the effect on liquidity and turnover in the portfolios to show that it is possible to implement extensive sustainability increasing methods into an index replication equity portfolio. We follow the UCITS-directory to avoid overweightin specic companies and only allow the portfolios to overweight a sector with maximum 2%, in order to avoid an unwanted exposure to sectors with naturally lower intensities. The portfolios are obtained by using a multi-factor risk model to predict the expected statistical behaviour in relation to the chosen factors. Followed by applying Markowitz Modern Portfolio Theory through a convex optimization problem with the objective function to minimize tracking-error. All displayed portfolios had stable and convex optimization and were compliant with the UCITS-directory. We limited our study to only North American stocks and chose the index "MCSI NA" to replicate. Only stocks that were a part of the index were allowed to invest in and we did not allow negative weights for any stocks. The portfolios were constructed and backtested for the period 2014-12-01 until 2019-03-01 with rebalancing quarterly at the same points in time that the index is rebalanced by MCSI. We found that it was possible to implement extensive sustainability considerations into the portfolios and still keep a high correlation with the index whilst keeping low tracking-errors. We believe that most index replicating investors should be able to implement reductions of above mentioned intensities of about 40-60% without compromising tracking-errors,returns and volatility too much. We found evidence that during this time and in this market our low-intensities portfolios would have overperformed the index. We also found that returns increased and volatility decreased as we increased the reduction of each individual measure and all three collectively. Reducing carbon intensity seemed to drive positive returns and lower volatility the most, but we also observed apositive effect from reduction of all intensities. Our belief before conducting this study was that sustainability should have a negative effect on returns due to the limitation of the feasible area of investing. This motivated us to build portfolios with intent to makeup for these lesser returns and hopefully "beat the index". This failed in almost all cases and the only way we were able to beat the index were through implementing sustainability in our portfolios.

<p> </p><p><strong>The airline industry and Sustainable Value</strong>The airline industry are, by many, considered to be an industry with a high level of environmental impact, in other words an environmental destroyer. Although some argue that it still does only produces a small part of the world’s total emissions it is still an industry under high pressure from regulatory institutions and customers.</p><p>Sustainable value is a rather new concept and allows the user measure a company’s social and/or environmental performance in monetary terms, which is the main difference from many financial calculation models. The ADVANCE sustainable value method is based on theories of opportunity costs and can give indications in terms of efficiency in comparison to a chosen benchmark.<strong>Purpose </strong>With the use of this method we are interested in finding out if an airline can create a <em>sustainable value</em> even though they are performing an activity that, for some, is seen as destroying the environment? The sustainable value method prime users would be stakeholders such as investors and as many companies in the airline industry are non-public companies, we also aim to discuss a wider range of usage for this method such as for the management internal decision process.</p><p><strong>Method</strong>We have chosen three major Swedish airlines to base our calculations on by using a nonprobability selection. We have excluded companies that are not registered in Sweden, does not provide actual passenger transport, are so called “virtual airline” and/or have not any publicly available information. A virtual airline, in this context, refers to an airline that does not own or lease any own aircrafts and instead are buying passenger chairs from another airline, called codesharing. We will benchmark our calculations towards the Swedish GDP and the Swedish Transport sector.</p><p><strong>Theoretical framework</strong>The management’s task is to, among other things, implement measures for the management accountants to use in their work. Corporate Sustainable Responsibility’s (CSR) general idea is to act responsible towards the most important questions for their stakeholders such as investors, government etc. CSR has led to that more sustainability information to stakeholders is produced, the type of information that we are using in our calculations.<strong>Our findings</strong>By the use of the ADVANCE method we can see that in fact airlines, despite the high preasure can create a positive Sustainable Value while comparing to the transport sector. We also argue the method can be used by the management as a complement to their other financial measures as it gives other efficiency indications than traditional methods.</p><p> </p> / <p><strong>Flygbranschen och hållbart värde</strong>Flygbranschen är, av många, ansed vara en industri med hög miljöpåverkan. Även om vissa hävdar att det fortfarande bara bidrar till en liten del av världens totala utsläpp, är det fortfarande en bransch under högt tryck från lagstiftande institutioner och kunder. Hållbart värde är ett tämligen nytt begrepp och tillåter att användaren att mäta ett företags sociala och / eller miljöprestanda i monetära termer, vilken är den största skillnaden från många ekonomiska beräkningsmodeller. ADVANCE Sustainable Value metoden är baserad på teorier om alternativa kostnader och kan ge indikationer i fråga om effektivitet i jämförelse med en vald riktmärke. <strong>Syfte</strong>Med hjälp av denna metod är vi intresserade av att veta om ett flygbolag kan skapa ett hållbart värde trots att de utför en verksamhet som, för vissa, ses som förstör miljön. Metodens främsta användarna är intressenter som investerare. Då många svenska företag i flygbranschen är icke-offentliga bolag, strävar vi också att diskutera en bredare användning för denna metod som för förvaltningen interna beslutsprocessen. <strong>Metod</strong>Vi har valt tre stora svenska flygbolag att basera våra beräkningar på genom att använda en icke sannolikhets urval. Vi har uteslutit företag som inte är registrerade i Sverige, inte ge nuvarande persontransporter, är så kallade "virtuella flygbolag" och / eller inte har någon allmänt tillgänglig information. Ett virtuellt flygbolag, i detta sammanhang hänvisar till ett flygbolag som inte äger eller leasar några egna flygplan och istället köper passagerare stolar från ett annat bolag, kallat code sharing. Vi kommer att jämföra våra beräkningar till den svenska BNP och den svenska transportsektorn. <strong>Teoretiskt ramverk</strong>Ledningens uppgift är att bland annat genomföra åtgärder för förvaltningen revisorer att använda i sitt arbete. Corporate Social Responsobilitys (CSR) allmänna tanken är att agera ansvariga gentemot de viktigaste frågorna för deras intressenter såsom investerare, regeringen osv. CSR har lett till att mer hållbarhets information  produceras, vilken är den typ av information som vi använder i vår beräkningar. <strong>Vårat resultat</strong>Genom användning av metoden kan vi se att det faktiskt finns ett flygbolag som trots det höga trycket kan skapa ett positivt hållbart värde när vi jämför mot transportsektorn. Vi hävdar också att metoden kan användas av ledningen som ett komplement till sina andra ekonomiska verktyg eftersom det ger andra effektivitet indikationer än traditionella metoder.</p>

The airline industry and Sustainable ValueThe airline industry are, by many, considered to be an industry with a high level of environmental impact, in other words an environmental destroyer. Although some argue that it still does only produces a small part of the world’s total emissions it is still an industry under high pressure from regulatory institutions and customers. Sustainable value is a rather new concept and allows the user measure a company’s social and/or environmental performance in monetary terms, which is the main difference from many financial calculation models. The ADVANCE sustainable value method is based on theories of opportunity costs and can give indications in terms of efficiency in comparison to a chosen benchmark.Purpose With the use of this method we are interested in finding out if an airline can create a sustainable value even though they are performing an activity that, for some, is seen as destroying the environment? The sustainable value method prime users would be stakeholders such as investors and as many companies in the airline industry are non-public companies, we also aim to discuss a wider range of usage for this method such as for the management internal decision process. MethodWe have chosen three major Swedish airlines to base our calculations on by using a nonprobability selection. We have excluded companies that are not registered in Sweden, does not provide actual passenger transport, are so called “virtual airline” and/or have not any publicly available information. A virtual airline, in this context, refers to an airline that does not own or lease any own aircrafts and instead are buying passenger chairs from another airline, called codesharing. We will benchmark our calculations towards the Swedish GDP and the Swedish Transport sector. Theoretical frameworkThe management’s task is to, among other things, implement measures for the management accountants to use in their work. Corporate Sustainable Responsibility’s (CSR) general idea is to act responsible towards the most important questions for their stakeholders such as investors, government etc. CSR has led to that more sustainability information to stakeholders is produced, the type of information that we are using in our calculations.Our findingsBy the use of the ADVANCE method we can see that in fact airlines, despite the high preasure can create a positive Sustainable Value while comparing to the transport sector. We also argue the method can be used by the management as a complement to their other financial measures as it gives other efficiency indications than traditional methods. / Flygbranschen och hållbart värdeFlygbranschen är, av många, ansed vara en industri med hög miljöpåverkan. Även om vissa hävdar att det fortfarande bara bidrar till en liten del av världens totala utsläpp, är det fortfarande en bransch under högt tryck från lagstiftande institutioner och kunder. Hållbart värde är ett tämligen nytt begrepp och tillåter att användaren att mäta ett företags sociala och / eller miljöprestanda i monetära termer, vilken är den största skillnaden från många ekonomiska beräkningsmodeller. ADVANCE Sustainable Value metoden är baserad på teorier om alternativa kostnader och kan ge indikationer i fråga om effektivitet i jämförelse med en vald riktmärke. SyfteMed hjälp av denna metod är vi intresserade av att veta om ett flygbolag kan skapa ett hållbart värde trots att de utför en verksamhet som, för vissa, ses som förstör miljön. Metodens främsta användarna är intressenter som investerare. Då många svenska företag i flygbranschen är icke-offentliga bolag, strävar vi också att diskutera en bredare användning för denna metod som för förvaltningen interna beslutsprocessen. MetodVi har valt tre stora svenska flygbolag att basera våra beräkningar på genom att använda en icke sannolikhets urval. Vi har uteslutit företag som inte är registrerade i Sverige, inte ge nuvarande persontransporter, är så kallade "virtuella flygbolag" och / eller inte har någon allmänt tillgänglig information. Ett virtuellt flygbolag, i detta sammanhang hänvisar till ett flygbolag som inte äger eller leasar några egna flygplan och istället köper passagerare stolar från ett annat bolag, kallat code sharing. Vi kommer att jämföra våra beräkningar till den svenska BNP och den svenska transportsektorn. Teoretiskt ramverkLedningens uppgift är att bland annat genomföra åtgärder för förvaltningen revisorer att använda i sitt arbete. Corporate Social Responsobilitys (CSR) allmänna tanken är att agera ansvariga gentemot de viktigaste frågorna för deras intressenter såsom investerare, regeringen osv. CSR har lett till att mer hållbarhets information  produceras, vilken är den typ av information som vi använder i vår beräkningar. Vårat resultatGenom användning av metoden kan vi se att det faktiskt finns ett flygbolag som trots det höga trycket kan skapa ett positivt hållbart värde när vi jämför mot transportsektorn. Vi hävdar också att metoden kan användas av ledningen som ett komplement till sina andra ekonomiska verktyg eftersom det ger andra effektivitet indikationer än traditionella metoder.

The theoretical and practical importance of working capital management (Sharma &amp; Kumar, 2011) and its strong link with the firm’s financial stability (Wang et al., 2020, p. 2; Kamel 2015, p. 35) make it one of the most important functional areas of corporate finance. Although literature and the corporate world recognize corporate sustainability mainly through corporate social responsibility (CSR), ESG emerged in the recent past and quickly made its strong footfall as an indicator of corporate sustainability. Literature is evident that studies have mainly focused on studying both working capital management (WCM) and corporate sustainability in relation to firm financial performance (FFP), while scant research has assessed the relationship between WCM and corporate sustainability (Barros et al., 2022, p. 1). The primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between corporate sustainability and WCM in the Swedish market to fill this gap in the literature and contribute to the existing body of knowledge on the subject matter through its findings, especially with reference to the use of ESG rating scores.  The relationship was examined through the quantitative approach. Sample data was comprised of 418 firm-year observations retrieved from Refinitiv Eikon on 38 firms listed on Nasdaq Stockholm between 2010-2020. ESG rating scores were used to measure corporate sustainability, while two proxy measures; cash conversion cycle (CCC) and working capital requirements (WCR) were for WCM. Stata software was used to find the results of the study by running the pertinent regression models using robust standard errors. Various statistical tests were performed to satisfy all the OLS classical assumptions. The empirical results of our study revealed mixed findings. The findings connected to CCC indicated no statistically significant relationship between ESG scores and CCC which allowed us to conclude that sustainable firms in Sweden do not operate with a shorter CCC (or cash cycle). The findings connected to WCR indicated a significant negative relationship of WCR with the environmental and social score, however no relationship with ESG and governance scores. These results allowed us to conclude that sustainable firms in Sweden are able to operate with WCR (or cash requirements), however, these effects entirely come from the environmental and social pillars, which indirectly implies more sustainable firms can operate with lower levels of debt than their counterparts. Since we found no significant effect from the ESG scores for both CCC and WCR, our findings were partially in line with the shareholder theory, the stakeholders’ theory, and the legitimacy theory we used as theoretical references in our study. The overall findings of our study allow us to suggest sustainable firms in Sweden reconsider their working capital policy decisions to achieve working capital efficiency (a shorter cash cycle) while staying aligned with their sustainability goals.