Unethical procedures, social irresponsibility and climate change all contribute to unsustainable development. Changing our behavior to contribute to sustainable development has therefore become increasingly important. This increased awareness of corporate social and environmental impact has meant that sustainable development has become an important issue for both companies and individuals. An important factor in contributing to a sustainable society is to direct capital flows into sustainable investments and the interest in investing sustainable has increased in recent years. Thus, the pressure on companies has increased in terms of working more with sustainability and communicating that work externally by drawing up a sustainability report.An important stakeholder group for companies is institutional investors. Our purpose was to find out how they use companies' sustainability reports to analyze a company's work with sustainability and what they consider about the credibility of sustainability reports. Given the purpose, the study aims at contributing to an increased understanding of sustainability reports and their usefulness for institutional investors. We have also intended to contribute to a greater understanding of what opinions institutional investors have about the credibility of sustainability reports. To achieve the purpose of the study, a qualitative method has been used. Qualitative interviews have been conducted with seven respondents with good knowledge in the areas of sustainable investments and sustainability reports.The result of the study shows that institutional investors believe sustainability reports are useful for analyzing a company's sustainability efforts. Corporate sustainability reports are used by all respondents, but to varying degrees. All respondents consider that other sources are also needed to obtain the information required to get a comprehensive picture of the companies' work with sustainability, so the information in the sustainability report is not sufficient. Respondents also argue that sustainability reports are credible reports, but in the case of external review, the views differ somewhat. The majority believe that it is positive if a sustainability report is externally reviewed, while a few respondents consider that an external review is of no importance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-66277 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Andersson, Emma, Lundkvist, Angelica |
| Publisher | Karlstads universitet, Handelshögskolan, Karlstads universitet, Handelshögskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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