Sustainability is a universal topic that has gained in significance during the last decade due to the increased risks for society as well as the environment itself. Therefore, a lot more attention is given to how companies disclose upon their impact on environment, society and governance. This paper aims to pick up on criticism to sustainability reporting regarding the variety of different frameworks surrounding this topic and investigate upon how companies use them to create their reports and if, in their opinion, unification can be reached in the nearby future. The second objective of this thesis is to explore upon and collect knowledge regarding the developing role of the new profession of the ESG/Sustainability controller. To reach the research objectives and collect sufficient data, semi-structured, qualitative interviews have been conducted with six companies and their respective sustainability reporting responsible. Previous research points out that the ‘arena’ of sustainability reporting frameworks has become too dense. This has led to companies firstly struggling to navigate through the enormous amount of regulations and guidelines, secondly adversely affected the implementation of harmonization within sustainability reporting and thirdly using their reports as marketing tools. These theoretical findings have been mostly supported by the results of this thesis. Almost all of the interviewed companies have adopted a common index, called GRI, that builds their sustainability disclosure base. However, the findings of this thesis point out that their efforts, to go beyond this reporting guideline, can be connected to motives that are either of external, operational, transparency or recruitment nature. Even though companies would wish for a common, unified reporting framework, such as the upcoming inclusion of CSRD in the future, and see potential advantages, there are some specific, current challenges that have to be overcome first regarding sustainability reporting. Nevertheless, from the data analyzed it is evident that companies are looking forward to this new, mandatory reporting regulation and prepare themselves adequately and intensively. The results of the qualitative study regarding the development of the new controller profession further suggests that the ESG/Sustainability controller has a broad post-graduate background, however, not only in business administration. One reason is that the tasks of this new profession vary by quite some margin from traditional controlling tasks and their responsibilities also go beyond merely preparing, analyzing financial reports and supporting management, but are dedicated to the sustainability reporting process and other sustainability projects.

Background: Sustainability reporting has become increasingly important for firms that want to appease their stakeholders and the society, whilst possibly increasing the corporate financial performance (CFP) of the firm. This is because sustainability disclosures currently work as the main channel for firms to inform their stakeholders of the CSR practices and environmental management carried out by the company. However, there have been various previous studies that examine the relation between corporate social performance (CSP) or the reported CSP, and CFP but not a study that would focus on GRI’s adherence level and its effect on Firm value (FV). The adherence level in the context of a GRI Report refers to the extent to which the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework and GRI Standards have been applied to a company’s sustainability report (Global Reporting Initiative, n.d.). This study intends to examine if stakeholders can be affected by a sustainability report’s adherence ranking made by GRI, although there necessarily would not be a clear connection to a company’s actual environmental performance.  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out if the adherence level affects a firm’s value and how, although this classification of reports would not say anything about a company’s level of sustainability or a company’s sustainability performance. In short, the study wants to examine if stakeholders or the society surrounding a company are affected by the adherence level of a company’s GRI reporting and if this then can affect the value of the organization in any way. Aim: The aim of this research is to encourage organizations to become more transparent or elaborate regarding their sustainability practices if any significance between the adherence level and the FV can be found.  Method: This study was conducted by examining 98 European manufacturing firms’ GRI adherence levels for the years 2017 to 2019 and comparing them to respective Firm Values (Tobin’s Q) by the usage of panel data regression analysis.  Conclusion: The results show that no significant relationship between the GRI adherence level and FV can be found in the European manufacturing industry for the period 2017 to 2019.

Thinking sustainably is becoming increasingly important among companies. Today, there are demands from both stakeholders and the law to conduct sustainable operations. Companies have a social and ethical responsibility to achieve competitive advantage and a good corporate reputation. This is one reason why more and more companies today establish sustainability reports for their operations. It can be questioned whether the sustainability report is sufficient or if it is deficient. This study describes and explains the content of the sustainability report by analyzing the adequacy of the report and how it may develop in the near future. The essay is based on interviews with eleven respondents who are divided into four professional groups, accountants, companies, investors and academics. These professional groups have contributed an external and internal perspective to the sustainability report, which has provided a deeper understanding of the subject. The essay is based on a qualitative method with a deductive approach. There, the data material has been analyzed with the help of the theory section in order to be able to answer the essay's purpose and questions. The conclusion of the study is that the sustainability report is deficient, which is due to a lack of framework and regulation. The new regulation and framework of the future is well needed, but there is a clear doubt about the implementation.

Introduction - Sustainability reporting is becoming more and more important for businesses all around the world. Extant empirical literature investigating the relationship between family status and sustainability reporting provides inconclusive results. No previous studies investigated this association in the Swedish setting. Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate how family control and influence affects sustainability reporting behavior of Swedish listed firms. Theoretical framework – Sustainability disclosures are considered as effective means for companies to communicate with their stakeholders. Family firms are more concerned about their internal and external stakeholders in order to protect family’s socioemotional endowments. Methodology design – We use panel data on Swedish listed firms over the period of 2008-2015. We analyze data with random-effects ordered probit regression for panel data. Empirical findings - When we treat all family firms as homogenous, there are no statistically significant differences in the levels of reports of family and non-family firms. However, when we take into account internal contexts of family firms, we find that a family member(s) in top management or a family CEO make family firms more transparent about their sustainability performance. Conclusion – We document that presence of a family top manager(s) or of a family CEO is associated with higher level of details of sustainability reports. Family top managers are more likely to be concerned about internal and external stakeholders to preserve the family’s SEW.

直銷進入中國近20年，因為中國特殊法規環境，造成多數的中國消費者對直銷抱有一種懷疑的態度。但是近年來不少中國直銷企業，投入相當程度資金與人力在參與慈善公益和社區責任，形成以『參與社會公益為榮』，以『履行社會責任為傲』的行業風氣，進而大幅度提升中國直銷企業的社會形象。如此不僅有利於中國直銷長期持續的發展，並且中國直銷企業在實行企業社會責任作法，對於台灣直銷企業在深耕台灣本土市場或進軍大陸市場，具一定參考作用。 本研究以中國直銷標竿企業作為主要研究分析對象並以世界公認全球永續報告書綱領比較兩岸直銷企業在實行社會責任的差異，以發現標竿企業實行社會責任的特色並歸納其在中國成功實施企業社會責任九個關鍵因素 : 一、提升企業倫理境界，樹立社會責任理念。 二、將企業社會責任納入企業的發展戰略。 三、專職企業社會責任執行單位與企業社會責任發展平臺設置。 四、建立擁有企業獨特優勢與競爭特色的志願者服務隊伍。 五、保證產品與服務品質是最基本的社會責任。 六、制定完善的消費者保障制度。 七、掌握產品與顧客獨特優勢，舉辦適合自身企業文化的公益活動。 八、尊重中國傳統文化和中國政府。 九、積極宣傳企業社會責任或社會慈善履行情況。 / There are almost 20 years after Direct Selling commenced in China, due to complicated and restricted regulatory issues, the image of Direct Selling is always being argued and the perception of consumer is disadvantage for the development of Direct Selling in China. Recently some of Direct Selling companies have heavily involved corporate philanthropy and social responsibility, which are very instrumental for securing the recognition of general public today and enhancing the sustainability of the Direct Selling development in future in China. Furthermore, the experiences on the Corporate Social Responsibility of the Direct Selling in China are the best practice for penetrating the domestic market in Taiwan and new development in the Mainland China. It is applied to compare the planning & execution of Corporate Social Responsibility through Global Reporting Initiative between Taiwan and China : analyze the unique features of benchmark company of Direct Selling in China we select and find its comparison with Direct Selling companies of Taiwan and summary the 9 key success factors of the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility as following : 1. Elevate the standard of business ethic and build the concept of social responsibility. 2. Select the Corporate Social Responsibility as one of the corporate strategies. 3. Develop the dedicated organization & platform for the execution of Corporate Social Responsibility. 4. Build the unique features and core competences of volunteer taskforce within Distributor/Employee. 5. Ensure the product-guarantee and service-quality are the basic of social responsibility. 6. The establishment of full consumer protection system. 7. Conduct the best corporate philanthropy activity in connection with unique features of product & customer and corporate culture. 8. Respect Chinese culture & custom and China government. 9. Promote the execution & results of Corporate Social Responsibility or Corporate Philanthropy.

Abstract Sustainability has been one of the most discussed topics among the business world and society for the last decade. The globally growing concern about sustainability related issues has led to businesses and non-businesses meet the demand of their stakeholders by producing a sustainability report to demonstrate their work and development in sustainability and how they have measured it. There has been a fast-growing trend of sustainability reporting in few years and there are a number of different initiatives and requirements that define what kind of sustainability reports are produced. From the different sustainability initiatives, the largest principle-based initiative is the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) with almost 13 000 signatories and the largest reporting-based initiative is the Global reporting initiative (GRI). These two initiatives entered in to a partnership in 2010 with the aim of the GRI providing guidance for the signatories on how to disclose information from different areas in sustainability in their sustainability reports. There has been previous research that criticized the UNGC to be too broad and the principles difficult to translate in to sustainability reporting despite the existing partnership with the GRI. These previous studies expressed the lack of qualitative studies about the subject especially from the signatories’ perspective and the importance of approaching the topic from a practical point of view. The purpose of our research study was to create an understanding of the practicalities in UNGC signatories’ sustainability reporting, the challenges they face in the progress and how are they approaching those challenges. The thesis focuses on the Nordic region and the two research questions are:   How are the UNGC signatories practically translating the 10 principles into their sustainability reporting? What challenges do UNGC signatories find in sustainability reporting in general and how have they approached these challenges?   To answer these research questions the authors conducted a qualitative study by semi-structured interviews with company representatives from different Nordic UNGC signatories. The research study identified how do they practically identify what to report about the principles which is determined by materiality assessment provided by the GRI framework. This determines what is material for the company and its industry and focus on those areas in their sustainability report. Legal requirements, internal regulations and other commitments were also identified guiding sustainability reporting. The main challenges related to the sustainability reporting were mainly about data related issues, satisfying the stakeholders and the high number of different frameworks and regulations that are not necessarily interrelated. Majority of the participants approached these challenges by carrying out the materiality assessment as accurate and clear as possible in order to avoid data related difficulties. Some participants offer their different stakeholders with sustainability related information by different forms in order to make the sustainability reporting easier to read and understand. For the high number of frameworks and regulations, the participants have expectations for alignment among them in the future in order to make the reporting easier for everyone involved with sustainability reporting. The results of our findings were supported by theories and concepts such as the stakeholder’s theory, signalling theory and the CSR concept. Previous studies about sustainability reporting and UNGC were also compared to our findings in the analysis.

I takt med att hållbarhetsfrågor blivit allt viktigare har regeringen, efter EU-direktiv, infört en lag som kräver att större företag från och med räkenskapsåret 2017 måste upprätta en hållbarhetsredovisning. Den här kandidatuppsatsen tydliggör med hjälp av en kvalitativ studie hur det nya lagkravet om hållbarhetsredovisning påverkat företags hållbarhetsarbete. Syftet är att ge en bild av hur företagens hållbarhetsredovisning har förändrats i samband med lagkravet samt analysera och förklara hur en förändrad hållbarhetsredovisning påverkat företagens arbete med hållbarhetsfrågor. Studien har genomförts med ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv och en abduktiv ansats. Relevanta teorier och tidigare forskning kring ämnet har tillsammans med semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem större företag samt granskning av tio företags årsredovisningar, legat till grund för analys. Resultatet visade framförallt en positiv inställning till lagkravet, både från företag som arbetat med det länge och de företagen som inte haft så stor erfarenhet kring ämnet sedan tidigare. De fria ramarna i lagkravet har gjort att företagen själva kunnat välja hur hållbarhetsredovisningen kring social, miljömässig och ekonomisk hållbarhet ska vara utformad. Tyvärr har det även försvårat jämförbarheten mellan företag trots att lagkravet delvis syftade till att underlätta denna jämförelse.

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.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T13:42:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Patricia Krauss Serrano.pdf: 1564474 bytes, checksum: 60351ac85983d55077adee196bddc250 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-08-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) stands out worldwide in order to minimize perceived quality problems in Sustainability Reports. One of GRI s initiatives is the development of environmental indicators. In the context of growing concern about environmental impacts of human activity, and considering environmental disclosure tool relevance for users depends on their relevance perception on the information it contains, the purpose of this study is: to analyze the perceived relevance by environmentalists non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Espírito Santo (Brazilian state) on the essential environmental indicators in GRI s third version. Questionnaires were sent to 52 NGOs, resulting in 24 responses. Indicators and respondents were analyzed according to their responses profiles. It was found that all the environmental indicators considered essential by GRI were mostly indicated as being of significant importance, by respondents, what means GRI has the ability to meet this segment of Brazilian society s expectations. The results signalize the GRI essential environmental indicators importance on sustainability reports, and that disclosure standards internationalization for basic global issues related to the environment does not diminish its importance to users, in specific locations / A iniciativa da ONG internacional Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) se destaca mundialmente, no intuito de minimizar problemas percebidos na qualidade das informações divulgadas em Relatórios de Sustentabilidade. Dentre as iniciativas da GRI, tem-se a elaboração de indicadores relacionados a aspectos ambientais. No contexto de crescente preocupação em relação aos impactos da atividade humana no meio ambiente, e considerando que a relevância dessa ferramenta de evidenciação ambiental depende da percepção por parte dos usuários da relevância das informações nela contidas, o objetivo deste trabalho é: analisar a percepção de organizações não governamentais (ONGs) ambientalistas atuantes no Espírito Santo acerca da relevância dos indicadores ambientais essenciais na terceira versão do modelo GRI. Para tanto, um questionário foi encaminhado a 52 ONGs, obtendo-se 24 respostas. Indicadores e respondentes foram analisados de acordo com os perfis de respostas atribuídas. Verificou-se que todos os indicadores ambientais considerados essenciais pela GRI foram julgados, majoritariamente, como de significativa relevância, pelas ONGs respondentes, ou seja, o modelo GRI tem capacidade de atender a anseios desse segmento da sociedade, atuante no Espírito Santo. Os resultados sinalizam a importância dos indicadores ambientais essenciais da GRI nos relatórios de sustentabilidade, e que a crescente internacionalização de padrões para evidenciação de aspectos relacionados a problemáticas globais relativas ao meio ambiente não diminui, necessariamente, a sua relevância para usuários em localidades específicas

Sustainability reporting is a vital tool to communicate an organisation’s sustainability performance to stakeholders. Sustainability reporting also allows an organisation to communicate its vision, goals and strategic plans. In order to be strategic towards sustainability, an organisation should have a vision of where it wants to go, and assess where it is today, so as to take the right initiatives towards its vision. This thesis focuses on how GRI sustainability reporting and strategic planning towards sustainability can be combined in an integrated process to help organisations move towards sustainability. The Integrated Process allows an organisation to gain a better understanding of its sustainability context; design resilient strategies in light of that context using a backcasting from Sustainability Principles approach; and report its sustainability performance and progress in bridging the gap towards sustainability, transparently to internal and external stakeholders. / <p>Edwin Janssen +31626078987 Rutger Verkouw +31624155241 Selene Kfoury +551138138481</p>