På grund av antropogena utsläpp av växthusgaser sker stora förändringar i klimatet. Dessa kan leda till förödande konsekvenser för både människor, djur och natur. För att olika företag och verksamheter ska kunna mäta, hantera och eventuellt reducera sina växthusgasutsläpp används Greenhouse Gas Protocol som standard för växthusgasrapportering. Röda Korset Sverige har påbörjat ett klimatbokslut enligt Greenhouse Gas Protocol men inte inkluderat sina cirka 600 lokalföreningar runt om i landet. Syftet med detta arbete är därför att identifiera och kategorisera vilka aktiviteter Röda Korsets lokalföreningar bedriver som är av relevans i en växthusgasrapportering. Detta sker enligt Greenhouse Gas Protocol Scope 3, som är uppdelat i 15 olika kategorier och innefattar de indirekta växthusgasutsläppen genererade av den rapporterande verksamheten. Arbetet ämnar även leda till en enkät med generella frågor som ska kunna ställas till olika lokalföreningar för att mäta deras utsläpp av växthusgaser.  För att besvara syftet studerades inledningsvis Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Vidare genomfördes ett studiebesök inkluderat en intervju med ansvarig vid Röda Korsets lokalförening i Örebro samt en intervju med ansvarig vid Röda Korsets lokalförening i Piteå. Informationen om lokalföreningarnas aktiviteter som anskaffades kategoriserades sedan enligt kategorierna som Scope 3 innefattar, vilket sammanställdes i en tabell. En enkät utformades baserat på de kategoriserade aktiviteterna.  Resultatet visar att lokalföreningen i Örebro bedriver aktiviteter som platsar i Scope 3 kategorierna 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 och 11, medan lokalföreningen i Piteå bedriver aktiviteter som platsar i kategorierna 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 och 9. Frågeenkäten som skapades innehåller frågor baserade på de aktiviteter som platsade i någon av kategorierna som ingår i Scope 3, det innebär alltså att aktiviteter som inte tagits i beaktande i samband med kategoriseringen inte heller behandlats i frågeenkäten. Slutsatsen är att det saknas mycket information för att göra en fullständig Scope 3 rapportering. Förbättringar som behövs göras är bland annat att kartlägga verksamheterna mer noggrant. Det borde också undersökas huruvida lokalföreningarna bör ingå i Scope 1 och 2 som innefattar de direkta växthusgasutsläppen, i stället för Scope 3. / Due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, major changes are taking place in the climate. These can lead to devastating consequences for both humans, animals, and nature. For various companies and businesses to be able to measure, manage and possibly reduce their greenhouse gasemissions, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol is used as a standard for greenhouse gas reporting. The Red Cross Sweden has started a greenhouse gas accounting according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol but has not included its approximately 600 local associations around the country. The purpose of this report is to identify and categorize which activities the Red Cross local associations carry out that are relevant in a greenhouse gas accounting. This was done according to the Greenhouse Gas protocol, Scope 3 which is divided into 15 different categories that includes indirect greenhouse gasemissions generated by the reporting companies. The report also intends to lead to a questionnaire with general questions that can be asked to local associations to measure their greenhouse gasemissions.  To answer the purpose of the report, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol was initially studied. Furthermore, a study visit including an interview at the Red Cross Örebro was done and an interview with the Red Cross Piteå. Information about the local associations' activities that were acquired was then categorized according to the categories included in Scope 3, which were summarized in a table. The questionnaire was then designed based on the categorized activities.  The results show that the activities of the Red Cross Örebro fit in categories 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 11, while the activities of Red Cross Piteå fit in categories 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9. The questionnaire that was created contains questions based on the activities that were placed in at least one of the categories included in Scope 3, which means that activities not taken in account during the categorization were not included in the questionnaire. However, it can be stated that there is a lack of information in order to make a complete greenhouse gas accounting. Further improvements that need to be made are to map the activities more accurately. It should also be examined whether the local associations should be included in Scope 1 and 2, instead of Scope 3.

Research shows that the warming of the climate over the last century is extremely likely due to human activities. Furthermore, there is a need for an understanding how business activities counteract or contribute to climate change. In particular, the digitalization industry is often introduced as an important player in climate challenge. However, research also concludes that the digitalization industry’s impact on the climate is ambiguous, since it in some cases contributes to climate change and in other cases counteracts it. In order to understand the interplay between greenhouse gas emissions and digital solutions, it is necessary to outline and quantify the emissions from particular digitalization projects and furthermore the industry itself. The thesis takes off in a single case study at a Swedish digitalization consultancy company in order to investigate how both internal greenhouse gas emissions and greenhouse gas emissions from customer projects can be quantified as accurate and as often as possible. The findings disclose that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be tracked with an extremely short time step, practically continuously, especially if the tracking is integrated with the company’s ERP1 . Furthermore, the findings show that greenhouse gas emissions from customer projects can be quantified if interpreting and implementing the GHG Protocol with a soft system methodology (SSM) approach. The thesis contributes with (1) a general interpretation of the Corporate Standard (part of the GHG Protocol) in the context of digitalization; (2) a specific example of that interpretation and implementation; (3) a practical interpretation and implementation of the Project Protocol in the context of digitalization and its avoided or caused greenhouse gas emissions; and (4) a general and an in-depth analysis on the topic of quantifying a Swedish digitalization company’s greenhouse gas emissions and feasible approaches to assumption making. / Forskning slår fast att uppvärmningen av klimatet under det senaste århundradet med extremt hög sannolikhet är orsakad av människan. Det finns ett behov att förstå hur affärsverksamheter motverkar eller bidrar till klimatförändringarna. En del av denna affärsverksamheten sker inom digitaliseringsindustrin, vilken ofta presenteras som en central spelare i klimatfrågan. Å andra sidan visar forskning även på en osäkerhet gällande digitaliseringsindustrins påverkan på klimatet eftersom den i vissa fall bidrar till klimatförändringar medan den i andra fall motverkar dem. För att förstå samspelet mellan växthusgasutsläpp och digitala lösningar är det nödvändigt att överskåda och kvantifiera utsläpp från specifika digitaliseringsprojekt och, vidare, från själva industrin. Uppsatsen grundar sig i en fallstudie på ett svenskt digitaliseringskonsultbolag för att undersöka hur både interna utsläpp och utsläpp från kundprojekt kan kvantifieras så precist och så frekvent som möjligt. Resultaten pekar på att växthusgasutsläppen kan spåras och följas med extremt kort tidssteg, i stort sett kontinuerligt, i synnerhet om spårningen kan integreras med företagets affärssystem. Dessutom visar resultaten på att växthusgasutsläpp från kundprojekt kan kvantifieras om GHG Protocol tolkas och implementeras med hjälp av en “soft systems” metod (SSM). Uppsatsen bidrar med (1) en generell tolkning av Corporate Standard (en del av GHG Protocol) i en digitaliseringskontext; (2) ett specifikt exempel på en sådan tolkning och implementering; (3) en praktisk tolkning och implementering av Project Prototcol (en del av GHG Protocol) in en kontext av digitaliseringsbranschen och dess undvikta eller orsakade utsläpp; och (4) en generell och djupgående analys angående kvantifiering av ett svenskt digitaliseringsbolags växthusgasutsläpp och gångbara inställningar till att göra antaganden.

The electrical transmission and distribution grid play a vital role in reaching the Paris agreement by electrification of society. Although the climate impact of electricity production is well documented, the climate impact of the distribution of electricity has only been investigated in a few previous studies. Therefore, this study aims to present the carbon footprint of the distribution grid in Sweden. The study has developed a tool to map the carbon footprint by applying a case study of an electrical grid company in Sweden. The tool includes activities in the company’s value chain associated with material production, installation, usage, maintenance, transportation of the electrical grid and office activities during one year in an electrical grid company. The tool was developed in excel by implementing the theoretical framework of the Greenhouse Gas protocol and life cycle assessment. According to the guidelines of the Greenhouse Gas protocol the CO2 emissions were allocated in scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3. Scope 1 includes direct emissions controlled or owned by the company. Scope 2 are emissions from purchased heat and electricity consumed by the company, and scope 3 includes other indirect emissions from the company's activities throughout the value chain. The result shows the carbon footprint of the electrical distribution grid during 2020 was 2,02 kg CO2e per distributed MWh. The total carbon footprint of the distribution company was 54 329 ton CO2e. A majority, 97 % of the CO2e emissions originated from indirect emissions within scope 3, where capital goods stand for 76 % of the company’s total emissions followed by 12 % from fuel and energy rated activities. This result indicates the importance of including indirect emissions when analyzing the carbon footprint of a company’s value chain. Our study also indicates, in line with previous studies, that a majority of the emissions originate from the manufacturing of cables.

In context of the forthcoming Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, this study examines how scope 3 emissions and the reporting thereof affect the cost of debt. Further, it investigates how scope 1 emissions affect the cost of debt and how the two scopes differ in materiality. As a theoretical foundation, this thesis uses previous research on environmental risk management, carbon risk premium, scope 3 emissions and cost of capital. By collecting a sample of 1710 firm-year observations for publicly listed European companies during the period 2019-2022, this quantitative study utilizes fixed effect regression models to find the relationship between scope 3 emission and cost of debt. No evidence of a relationship between scope 3 emissions and cost of debt is found. When looking at scope 1 emissions, the results show that companies with lower scope 1 emissions are rewarded by creditors with a reduced cost of debt. Regarding reporting of scope 3 emissions, we find no evidence suggesting that scope 3 disclosure lowers the cost of debt.

As the world grapples with the increasingly dire effects of climate change, companies are under more pressure than ever before to not just report on their environmental impact, but to actively work towards sustainability. Carbon accounting has emerged as a crucial aspect of this reporting, and the concept of Scope 3 emissions, introduced by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol a decade ago, is now a vital tool for assessing a company's environmental footprint. Focusing on 124 large Swedish companies that are aligned with the Science-based target initiative, this research aims to investigate the methods and data used to assess their Scope 3 emissions. Through a qualitative approach that includes content analysis of published sustainability reports and a comprehensive literature review. The findings of this study are illuminating, revealing a troubling lack of consistency and comparability in the data, methods, and numbers disclosed by the companies. This highlights the need for transparency, comparability, and sector-specific guidelines in sustainability reporting standards. Furthermore, the study calls for further research to evaluate the effectiveness of current Scope 3 data collection tools and explore the potential impact of emerging technologies on reducing emissions across a company's value chain. By shedding light on these crucial issues, this study offers valuable insights for policymakers, academics, and corporate actors alike.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify incentives and discouragements thus providinga better understanding of how metal processing companies could set their Scope 3 boundary. Method: To achieve the purpose of the study, a qualitative case study with an inductive approach was used. The studied company was a global metal processing company that was working towards setting a Scope 3 boundary, and the data consists of semi-structured interviews that were gathered from both internal and external stakeholders. Findings: Firstly, the findings presented, highlight incentives that affected companies in the metal processing industry to pursue setting a Scope 3 boundary, namely incentives that are categorised into 1) Improved corporate environmental reputation, 2) Increased competitive advantage, and 3) Financial gains. The discouragements found were categorised into 1) High uncertainty, 2) Immature industry/technical solutions, and 3) Low influence outside of the organisational boundary. These incentives and discouragements were analysed to show how they affected the Scope 3 boundary. This resulted in an industry-specific guideline on how companies in the metal processing industry could set their Scope 3 boundary. Theoretical contribution: The findings prolong earlier research by defining incentives and discouragements in a Scope 3 context. A theoretical contribution from this study was that regulations might inhibit some of the Scope 3 incentives. The findings indicate that drivers to benchmark against other stakeholders, such as differentiating from competitors and improved corporate sustainable reputation. A non-regulatory market environment is, therefore, fostering these incentives, which could be useful to acknowledge in further studies in a Scope 3 context. Practical implications: This study provides an enhanced understanding of how metal processing companies can set their Scope 3 boundary based on what set of incentives or discouragements that drives them. It is also important for companies to understand incentives and discouragements that may change (e.g., regulations towards Scope 3 emissions) in time, which would result in different Scope 3 boundaries. Also, this understanding of what incentives and discouragementsaffecting the boundary-setting could benefit policymakers in their work improving the Scope 3 discouragements.

Considering the rapid increase in the ICT (Information & Communication Technology) products in use, there is a risk of an increase in GHG emissions and electronic waste accumulation in the ICT sector. Therefore, it becomes important to account for the emissions in the ICT sector in order to take steps to mitigate them. There are several methods put forward under ETSI, ITU-T, GHG protocol, etc., which can be used to measure the emissions in the ICT sector. Two such methods are Product Life Cycle Assessment (PLCA) and Spend-based, which are used in this study to account for scope 3, category 1 emissions in the ICT sector. Scope 3, category 1 emissions are released during the raw material acquisition and part production phase of the ICT product’s life cycle and account for a major portion of the overall emissions. As the ICT sector is a very huge field of study in itself, two ICT products, namely smartphones and laptops, are considered in this study to calculate their overall scope 3, category 1 emissions. A list of influential components in smartphones and laptops is defined to be included in the Excel Management Life Cycle Assessment (EMLCA) tool to calculate the scope 3, category 1 emissions. A comprehensive comparison between PLCA and Spend-based methods is also studied during the process of calculating their emissions. These observations are then used to make critical analyses and compare the two methods under results and discussions based on various parameters described under them. Both the methods were found to be suitable for calculating the emissions, with some uncertainty, although the Spend-based method was a quicker approach to do so. The PLCA method, although more complex, was found to be more suitable for ICT product eco-design. Both methods required a different set of primary data and were sensitive to various components in smartphones and laptops. This study illustrates the parameters that affect PLCA and Spend-based methods and discusses the pros and cons of them depending on the situations they are used in.

As CO2 emissions increase, so does the average temperature, leading toenvironmental consequences such as rising sea levels, drought, and starvation.Therefore, it is essential to act towards the reduction of the CO2 emissionsto counteract these dire consequences. The Science Based Target initiative(SBTi) which is a non-governmental organization has created a framework fororganisations to set net-zero targets for 2050. The goals are accompanied byguidelines, demands and recommendations for how to measure and reportemissions across a supply chain. There are challenges and problems attached to measuring CO2 emissions formultinational companies (MNC). The emissions are divided into three scopes.Scope 3 which consists of indirect emissions coming from up- anddownstream of the focal companies has proven to be challenging to gatherdata for due to lack of proper company capabilities. This thesis aims toidentify challenges related to measuring and reporting the emissions caused bythe use of sold products, which is one of the 15 categories of Scope 3.Moreover, this study aims to create a standardized framework for MNCs byaddressing the necessary steps for collecting data for developing an emissionscalculation tool and to suggest how to properly calculate and illustrateemissions ty the focal company. Lastly, the implementability of the frameworkwill be assessed. The research methods include a case study with a set of unstructuredinterviews of nine participants. These includes engineers, innovationmanagers, sustainability managers and product managers. Moreover, aniterative process for developing a calculation tool was performed includingtesting of the tool as it was developed. The case study identified challenges of calculating emissions from soldproducts. These were of lack of IT infrastructure, insufficient data forcalculating emissions, high uncertainties of how the organization shouldconduct measuring of emissions and how to allocate resources in the SBTiimplementation. Moreover, the risks of interpreting calculated dataincorrectly were identified. Lastly, a framework was created consisting of aseven-step process including: communicating transition, assembling projectteams, covering emission, mapping data, creating the tool, task delegation andeducation and standardization.

Vi lever i en tid präglad av drastiska klimatförändringar och ökade utsläpp av växthusgaser, där klimatångest har kommit att bli ett problem som tycks drabba såväl privatpersoner som företag. Allteftersom vår medvetenhet för samtidens klimathot ökar, har även hållbarhet fått en allt större betydelse för europeiska investerare. En tydlig konsekvens härav är den kraftiga ökningen av antalet hållbarhetsindex som identifierats på finansmarknaden. Hållbarhetsindex används ofta som komponent i passiva investeringsstrategier eller som verktyg för att mäta prestationen av olika värdepapper i en portfölj, och får på så vis funktionen av ett benchmark. Metoden för att utveckla såväl hållbara index som benchmarks kan emellertid variera, vilket ofta beror på att klimatrelaterad information kan vara extremt komplex att omvandla till finansiellt relaterbara värden. Svårigheterna härom har således minskat marknadens förtroende för sådana investeringsalternativ, trots den ökade benägenheten hos investerare att ta hänsyn till hållbarhet även i finansiella sammanhang. Bristande lagstiftning inom området föranledde Europeiska kommissionen att upprätta ett förslag om ändring av Benchmarkförordningen år 2018, som en del av sin handlingsplan för finansiering av hållbar tillväxt. Förordningen reglerar i dagsläget främst administratörer av benchmarks, vilka innehar det övergripande juridiska ansvaret för ett benchmark. Med förslaget införs nya kategorier för koldioxidsnåla och klimatpositiva benchmarks samt en reviderad transparensreglering som förpliktigar administratörer att offentliggöra hur de beaktar hållbarhet i sin metod och referensvärdesdeklaration. Även om förslaget välkomnats av flertalet aktörer, föreligger anledning att ifrågasätta huruvida marknaden kommer kunna förhålla sig till de ambitiösa ändringarna, samt om effekten av reglerna blir den som kommissionen eftersträvat. I uppsatsen identifieras och diskuteras de potentiella utmaningarna med förslagets ikraftträdande, vilka sedermera analyseras i förhållande till de åsyftade ändamålen med reglerna. Kritik riktas i uppsatsen främst mot förordningens bristande möjligheter att hålla andra aktörer ansvariga, eftersom uppfyllandet av de nya reglerna inte enbart är beroende av administratörernas eget agerande. Vidare konstateras att marknaden inledningsvis kommer att få stora svårigheter med insamling och verifiering av den klimatrelaterade information som är avgörande för användningen av miljövänliga benchmarks. Sett ur ett långsiktigt perspektiv tros emellertid ändringarna kunna skapa goda förutsättningar för en bättre inkludering av hållbarhet på finansmarknaden, utan kompromiss av ett konsument- eller investerarskydd.