Hållbarhetsredovisning : Granskningens roll i svenska hållbarhetsredovisningar

by Pamukci, Sara; Carlsson, Mina; Qvarnström, Annika

Since the end of the 20th century, it has become more common for companies to report their non-financial goals such as social- and environmental issues. This type of information can be compiled in a sustainability report which is voluntary for companies to conduct. The occurrence of assurance of the sustainability report in Sweden is not very common. Only 8 % of the Swedish companies let an external party assure their sustainability report. Eventhough, the assurance of the sustainability report today is voluntary there are several reasons that motivates the companies to assure their report. In this thesis the authors will examine some of the reasons why or why not Swedish companies listed on the stock market let an external party assure their sustainability report. In order to reach this purpose a quantitative method has been used and a survey by E-mail has been conducted including 96 Swedish listed companies. The data collection has been compiled as descriptive statistics with help of Excel. Furthermore, an extensive literature review has been carried out concerning sustainability reporting and assurance. The sustainability report is often explained with the help of stakeholder -, legitimacy – and agent theory. These theories can also give an explanation of how an external assurance of the sustainability report can be of importance to guarantee that the information given to the stakeholders is complete and reliable. This enables an evaluation to see whether the company is a good “social citizen” which will effect the company´s legitimacy. The sustainability report can prove to the owners of the company that the management takes responsibility of the company. The study shows that a few of the reasons to why the companies in the survey choose to let an external party assure their report is because they want to maintain the trust from the stakeholders and because they wish to increase the legitimacy of the report. The main reasons to why companies do not assure their report is because they do not feel that the stakeholders request it and that this type of information do not have to be assured. Above mentioned reasons can be correlated with a number of factors such as industry and company size. The study shows that the larger companies within an industry that has high effect on the environment and society tend to assure their reports to a greater extent than the smaller companies that find it more relevant to put their resources on developing the sustainability report. Definitioner Här följer korta definitioner av viktiga begrepp i studien. Begreppen kan definieras på många olika sätt men här följer de definitioner som författarna anser mest passande. Miljöredovisning Ett företags redovisning av miljöpåverkan som till exempel mängd av utsläpp i luft, vatten och mark. Från miljöredovisningen härstammar hållbarhets- redovisningen. Hållbarhetsredovisning Ett företags redovisning av miljö, sociala/etiska och ekonomiska aspekter. I denna uppsats används följande benämningar synonymt med hållbarhetsredovisning: hållbarhets –rapport, -information samt ickefinansiell information/redovisning. Corporate Social Responsibility Företagets sociala ansvar vilket menas att de ska ta ett ökat ansvar i relation till intressenterna. Företaget integrerar miljömässiga och sociala ansvar utöver vad lagen kräver.