This paper examines what effects announcements of green bond issuances have on publicly traded firms’ stock prices in Europe. Signalling theory is used in line with suggestions from previous research to investigate potential abnormal returns. Using a dataset of 432 green bond issuances from 165 unique publicly traded firms on European stock exchanges, we conduct an event study around the announcement day [0,1] estimating abnormal returns using the market model. To further investigate determinants of abnormal returns we conduct a multiple linear regression analysis. We document no statistic or economic significant effect in our full sample. Only first-time issuances of green bonds have a significant abnormal return of 0,74% in the period after announcement but show no significant results on the announcement date. Green bonds being a credible signal of environmental commitment thus has inconclusive support in our study and equity investors seem largely indifferent to firm’s green bond announcements.

Sustainability is more relevant than ever and has forced the pension industry to acknowledge new types of responsibilities during the last decades. Sustainable pension is based on the investing strategy, social responsible investment (SRI), which implies that pension funds should not solely focus on a good return of their investment, but also care for the social and economical welfare. Research has been conducted on the area of SRI and pension during the last decades but a gap has been identified as to how this research was eventually communicated to the customers. This thesis addresses this in two parts for the target group business customers. Firstly, to meet future demands in the pension industry, a better knowledge is needed of how the business customers understand what sustainable pension really is. This thesis aims to address this by answering the question “What are business customers’ understandings of sustainability and pensions?” Secondly, customers increasingly ask what impact their money is having on sustainability. In answer to this demand, a prototype with a concretization of sustainable pension savings was developed and evaluated, following a Human-Centered Design process throughout the thesis project. Interviews were conducted with pension experts and business customers. Results showed that business customers do not make a connection between sustainability and pension, that sustainability is diffuse and hard to understand in the financial setting, and that pension is too far from the operative business and perhaps the employees’ own responsibility. When explained, the belief was that sustainable pension is something positive. But preconceived notions about it being expensive and non-lucrative are factors that discourages. The final evaluation of the prototype was done with a user test that featured three of the four business customers from the interviews. Results pointed to that the business customers think that sustainable pensions became more understandable, that sustainable pension became more concrete, that it was interesting, fresh and that it broke new ground. The user test also revealed that rebound effects is a potential risk with sustainable pension, as participants expressed that they feel better and compensated with their own CO2 emission after they learned about the positive effects of a sustainable pension. / Hållbarhet är mer relevant än någonsin och har tvingat pensionsbranschen att erkänna nya typer av ansvar under de senaste decennierna. Hållbar pension är baserat på investeringsstrategin, ”social responsible investment” (SRI), som medför att pensionsfonder inte enbart ska fokusera på god avkastning, utan även ta hänsyn till social och ekonomisk välfärd. Forskning har utförts på området SRI ihop med pension under de senaste decennierna och ett kunskapsglapp har blivit identifierat kring hur denna forskning sedermera har kommunicerats vidare till kunderna. Den här avhandlingen adresserar det här i två delar för målgruppen företagskunder. För det första, för att möta framtida krav i pensionsbranschen, behövs det en bättre kunskap för hur företagskunders förståelse för hållbar pension är. Den här avhandlingens mål är att ta sig an detta genom att besvara frågan: ”Vad är företagskunders förståelse för hållbarhet och pension?”. För det andra, kunder frågar allt mer frekvent vilken skillnad deras pengar gör för hållbarhet. För att svara på detta har en prototyp med konkretiseringar av hållbar pension utvecklats och utvärderats. Prototypen följde en Human-Centered Design process genom hela projektet. Intervjuer utfördes med pensionsexperter och företagskunder. Resultat visade att företagskunder inte kopplar hållbarhet till pension, att hållbarhet är diffust och svårt att förstå i en finansiell kontext, och att pension är alldeles för långt från den operativa verksamheten och möjligtvis den anställdes eget ansvar. När det förklarades, upplevdes hållbar pension som någonting positivt. Men förutfattade meningar att det skulle vara dyrt och icke lukrativt är faktorer som avskräcker. Den slutgiltiga utvärderingen av prototypen gjordes med ett användartest med representanter från tre av de fyra företagen från intervjuerna. Resultaten pekade på att företagskunder tyckte att hållbar pension blev mer lättförståeligt, att hållbar pension blev mer konkret, att det var intressant, fräscht och att det bröt ny mark. Användartestet avslöjade också att ”rebound effects” är en potentiell risk med hållbar pension, då deltagarna uttryckte att det kändes bättre och att de blev kompenserade för deras egna CO2 utsläpp efter att de fick veta de positiva effekterna av hållbar pension.

Hållbarhet och etik är ett högst aktuellt ämne i dagens samhälle som även påverkar den finansiella sektorn. Ämnen som CSR och hållbarhetsfrågor har tidigare haft fokus på företagsvärlden men under de senaste åren har även finansvärlden uppmärksammat ämnet, i och med uppkomsten av sociala och etiska investeringar.Tidigare forskning inom området etiska fonder har framförallt handlat om avkastningen och urvalsprocessen av bolag, få studier har gjorts av fondernas etiska prestanda. Den här studien syftar till att fördjupa diskussionen kring de etiska fonderna. Detta görs genom att studera hur fondbolagen bedriver urvalsprocessen och förvaltningen av dessa fonder.I studien används en abduktiv ansats. Det har inneburit att vi har fått komplettera den ursprungliga teoridelen utifrån de svar vi fick under den empiriska insamlingen. Studien är kvalitativ och empirin samlades in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Vi valde att kontakta de fyra storbankernas fondbolag, två AP-fonder samt ytterligare ett fondbolag. Respondenterna som intervjuades bestod av fondförvaltare eller specialister inom hållbarhetsområdet.Resultatet av studien visar att benämningen etiska fonder är på väg bort. Branschen vill inte definiera etik istället talar man om efterträdarna, hållbara och ansvarsfulla fonder. Trots förnekelsen av etiska fonder används en liknande urvalprocess för de hållbara fonderna, därmed kvarstår den problematiken som funnits för de etiska fonderna. Den stora skillnaden idag är att fondbolagen vill agera hållbart och ansvarsfullt på alla plan, både gällande sociala- och miljömässiga aspekter.Studies resultat skiljer sig från tidigare forskning genom att den fokuserar på den etiska prestandan. Undersökningen konstaterar att etikfonderna håller på att försvinna, men ur dem har hållbara fonder fötts. Den här studien har gett ökad kunskap inom ett område som är relativt outforskat. Studien kan därför lämpligtvis användas för framtida forskning. / Sustainability and ethics are discussed all over the world. Subjects as CSR and sustainability related questions were earlier only highlighted by companies. Nowadays even the financial industry has started to focus on those questions, with the emergence of social and ethical investments.Previous research have focused on return or the selection process, very few have studied the ethical performance. This study aims to deepen the discussion about ethical funds. This is done by studying how the fund companies conduct the management of ethical funds.This study is using an abductive approach, which means that we have completed the original theory with more theory after we had done the research on the field. We have used a qualitative method and collected the empirical data by semi-structured interviews. The four largest banks fund companies of Sweden, two pension funds and one additional fund company were interviewed. The respondents were either fund managers or specialists in the area of sustainability.The results of the study show that the term ethical fund is slowly disappearing. No one of the respondents were willing to define ethics, they would rather discuss the successors sustainable- and responsible funds. Despite the denial of ethical funds, similar selection processes for sustainable funds are used as for ethical funds. The problems that have existed for the ethical funds are moving to the sustainable funds. The big difference today is that fund companies have a vision of acting responsible and sustainable at all levels, both in terms of social and environmental aspects.The results differ from previous research, since it focuses on the ethical performance. The study finds that ethical funds are disappearing as time goes by, but out of them have sustainable funds developed. This research has provided increased knowledge in an area that is relatively unexplored. The study can therefore be suitable for future research.

Problem: Do ethical investments perform better than conventional investments? Purpose: To evaluate whether Shariah-compliant indexes and/or socially responsible indexes can improve financial performance of an investment portfolio. Sub-problem: What kind of relationship exists between socially responsible investments and faith-based investments, represented by Shariah-compliant investments? Sub-purpose: To discover how two types of ethical investments, socially-responsible and Shariah-compliant, are related. Method: Quantitative study, covering three types of investment styles of four index families during the period from 2000 until 2011. Financial performance evaluation through the Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen’s alpha. Conclusions: Conventional, socially responsible, and Shariah-compliant indexes do not have any significant differences in financial performance on a global basis. However, Shariah-compliant indexes could slightly over-perform conventional and socially responsible indexes during financial downturns. In the same time socially responsible indexes were noticed to be the most volatile during the whole period of study, to compare with conventional and Shariah-compliant. Regarding relationships, high correlations were found between ethical indexes, as well as between ethical and conventional indexes.

Responsible Investments is currently paving new paths in the financial industry. UnitedNation´s Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) has in four years attracted over 700signatories in 36 countries. The principles are voluntary and kept in an open non-governingstructure. The lack of formal definitions and the actual value or effects of the UN PRIadoption is difficult to assess. Many researchers today are involved in attempts to measure thefinancial performance of responsible investments. This study takes a different stand point andinvestigates the motivation for joining UN PRI, how the implementation has been carried outand what the effects are, by the use of a case study. The six largest investors in terms of assetunder management (AUM) among the Swedish UN PRI signatories were interviewed, and aqualitative based semi structured interview was used. A structural analysis was carried out onthe results. Institutional Theory was used to explain the motivation for joining UN PRI andserved as the theoretical framework. Interpretation of UN PRI´s implementation differed insome instances to a large degree between the respondents. Transparency was uncovered as amajor success factor to the investors in support of decision making. All interviewedsignatories had developed their own way of working with UN PRI in terms of organization,priorities and the attempts to measure its effects. There is still a great need for moreknowledge around how these principles shall be implemented successfully and become part ofmainstream investments.The target audience for this paper is academics or business professionals with an interest inwhy and how UN´s principles for responsible investments are adopted by the financialindustry.

There is no clear consensus about whether green investments perform better, worse orequal to conventional brown investments. With the rising popularity of socialinvestments, it becomes increasingly important to understand these investments. Therecent launch of the MSCI Climate Paris Aligned Indices (CPAI) aim to illustrate thedevelopment of an economy that is in line with the requirements and goals of the ParisAgreement from 2015. In this research we aim to find out whether the MSCI Europe,USA and EM Climate Paris Aligned Indices outperform their parent indices. We do thisby comparing performance measures such as the net return, standard deviation of netreturns and Sharpe ratio. We further conduct an ordinary least squares regression to testwhether the betas and Jensen´s alphas of the CPAI differ significantly from their parentindices.The results show that only the USA CPAI clearly outperforms its parent index. This isdue to it having a higher Sharpe Ratio and Jensen’s alpha as well as higher monthly netreturns and a lower standard deviation compared to its parent index. The regressionshows that it does perform better than the parent index. The results for the EM CPAIshow that it performs in a similar way as its parent index. It has a higher monthly netreturn but also slightly higher standard deviation which leads to an equally large Sharperatio. Neither the estimated Jensen’s alpha nor the beta are significantly different fromthose of its parent index and thus the hypothesis of it performing equally as well as itsparent index cannot not be rejected. Lastly, the Europe CPAI has a higher Sharpe ratio,Jensen’s alpha and monthly net returns than its parent index, but it also exhibits a higherstandard deviation. The regression indicated that it performs in a similar way as itsparent index, no difference could be proven. In conclusion, this means that all CPAIperform at least equally as well as their parent indices, if not better.

[pt] Riscos e oportunidades ESG possuem cada vez mais destaque perante a sociedade civil, chefes de estado, organizações intergovernamentais e no mundo de investimentos corporativo. Como consequência, os modelos de negócios incluem cada vez mais uma abordagem estratégica que levam em consideração as suas externalidades geradas em aspectos ambientais e sociais, com a real preocupação de realizar uma transição para um modelo de negócio sustentável. Esse estudo tem como objetivo utilizar o modelo Value-Driver Adjustment Approach desenvolvido por Willem Schramade (2016), que desenvolveu um questionário como ferramenta para integrar sustentabilidade em análises de investimento, por meio de aspectos qualitativos e quantitativos ESG. Esse processo é proposto através da compreensão sobre como aspectos ESG afetam o modelo de negócios, posição competitiva, estratégia e impulsionadores de valor. Nesse trabalho, o modelo Value-Driver Adjustment Approach foi aplicado à empresa Raízen, líder no segmento de biocombustíveis. Como resultado, a Raízen se mostrou capacitada para realizar uma transição para um modelo de negócio sustentável sob uma perspectiva financeira, ambiental e social, e, possivelmente, ser exemplo para outras empresas do mesmo setor, já que possui condições financeiras, tecnologia, capital humano, além de ser uma líder no segmento de biocombustíveis. Com a introdução de riscos e oportunidades ESG na avaliação financeira foi observado crescimento de vendas, melhora de margens e melhor ROIC. / [en] ESG Risks are increasingly prominent among civil society, heads of state, intergovernmental organizations, and the world of corporate investments. Therefore, business models increasingly include a strategic approach that takes into account the externalities generated in environmental and social aspects, with the real concern of carrying out a transition to a sustainable business model. This study aims to use the Value Driver Adjustment Approach model developed by Willie Schramade (2016), who developed a questionnaire as a tool to integrate sustainability into investment analysis, through qualitative and quantitative ESG aspects. This process is proposed through understanding how ESG aspects affect the business model, competitive position, strategy, and value drivers. In this work, the Value-Driver Adjustment Approach Model was applied to the company Raízen, a leader in the biofuel segment. As a result, Raízen showed to be capable of making a transition to a sustainable business model from a financial, environmental and social perspective, and possibly being an example for other companies in the same sector, as it has financial conditions, technology, human capital, in addition being a leader in the biofuels segment. With the introduction of ESG risks and opportunities in the valuation, it was observed sales growth, better margins and ROIC.

Bakgrund: I takt med klimatförändringarna har EU publicerat nya förordningar som syftar till att begränsa den sektor som har högst koldioxidutsläpp. Private Banking-sektorn omfattas av de nya förordningarna och tidigare forskning lyfter fram olika faktorer som påverkar en Private Bankers integrering av ESG i investeringsprocessen i arbetet mot att uppnå Parisavtalet och de globala målen 2030. Forskningsfråga: Hur arbetar Private Bankers med miljö-, sociala och styrningskriterier? Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att analysera vilka faktorer som påverkar en Private Banker att integrera miljö-, sociala och styrnings (ESG-) kriterier i investeringsprocessen. Studien avgränsar till Private Banking-sektorn i Sverige. Metod: Studien har genomfört på ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt i kombination med en abduktiv ansats. Intervjuerna har genomförts med fem olika respondenter från tre olika storbanker i Sverige från Halmstad, Göteborg och Stockholm. Teoretisk referensram: Den teoretiska referensramen behandlar tre olika teorier; aktieägarteori, intressentteori, nyinstitutionell teori. Resultat: Det görs tydligt att trenden inom storbankerna är hållbarhet. De olika faktorerna visar sig ha ett samband i hur en Private Banker integrerar ESG i investeringsprocessen genom att faktorerna påverkar varandra. De formella reglerna har störst påverkan i en Private Bankers investeringsbeslut inom storbankerna, men är även formad efter samhällets normer och värderingar. En utmaning inom sektorn är att få sina kunder mer medvetna om den påverkan deras placeringar har.