Hållbarhetsredovisning - ett verktyg för förbättrat hållbarhetsarbete?

Sustainability reporting has emerged as a common practice of 21st-century business. A sustainability report is a report published by an organization that presents the economic, environmental and social impacts caused by its activities. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a non-profit organization with the mission to promote the transition to a sustainable global economy by providing a framework for sustainability reporting. In 2014, the European Commission issued a directive for the reporting of sustainability data that comprises approximately 6,000 organizations in Europe. The member states now have 2 years to transpose it into national legislation and it is expected that the first sustainability reports will be published in 2018. Since sustainability reports is becoming more and more common – most large companies now discloses sustainability performance data; it is of great interest to discuss how companies that apply the GRI guidelines perceives its effects on their sustainability performance. Interviews were conducted with head of sustainability at four different companies in Sweden and Denmark; Wihlborgs Fastigheter, Oresundsbro konsortiet, SEB and Kobenhavns Lufthavn. The results showed that the effects of sustainability reporting varies depending on the companies incentives to start reporting, their organizational structure as well as their industry and former experiences with working with sustainability issues. The companies mainly mentioned improved processes and structures within their sustainability efforts as a result of the sustainability reporting process whereas direct improvement of their sustainability performance was harder to identify. The results showed that applying the framework does not automatically lead to improvements in sustainability performance -companies must actively take advantage of the opportunities that the process of sustainability reporting provides for a change to take place. If not, there is a risk that the sustainability report will consist only of information about what has already been done, and that the process of reporting leads to no direct improvement in sustainability practices. (Less)