Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the companies approach to sustainability and to examine the relationship between the report content and the sustainability efforts businesses are making in practice.Method: The study has a qualitative perspective with semi-structured interviews and content analysis as method to collect data. Three companies were interviewed; Tekniska Verken AB, Apoteket AB and Max hamburgerrestauranger AB. The content analysis was used when collecting data from the three companies? sustainability reports.Frame of reference: Legitimacy theory, Stakeholder theory, Institutional theory, the Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility.Results: The result showed that all companies are prepared to work for sustainable development and that they view sustainability as an integrated part of their work. The sustainability report is the basis for sustainability reporting, which is a way for companies to demonstrate to their stakeholders what they stand for and what they implement in practice.

Sustainable development and sustainability is nowadays expected to be integratedin modern city planning and permeate the entire planning process. At the sametime, sustainable development has an inherent vagueness, leading to a greatdiversity of interpretations of the meaning of this concept. In this thesis strongsustainability and ecological modernization are used as two different interpretationsof sustainable development. Using these two interpretations, an analysis of thecurrent use of the concept of sustainability within the city planning of Malmö isperformed. The analysis shows that the interpretation of sustainable development inthe city of Malmö can be deduced to ecological modernization and thatsustainability is looked upon as one way to improve the attractiveness of the city.Investments to increase ecological and social sustainability must be legitimized asleading to a potential increase in economical sustainability (growth) and the focusof increasing the sustainability in the city has shifted from ecological aspects toeconomical aspects.

Sustainability reports are drawn up for the company's stakeholders and declare the company?s corporate social responsibility. Consumers are one of the companies' most important stakeholders for food companies. This study is aimed to describe how consumers perceive sustainability reporting in the food industry and if the application level of the GRI framework has an impact on how consumers perceive sustainability reports. Consumer perception is described in the GRI principles and the basis is the ICA and Coop's sustainability reports, which are two of Sweden's largest food company.

Sustainable development is a concept that has been interpreted in a multitude of ways in different contexts. This essay argues that the discourse of "ecological modernization" has strongly influenced the way in which the concept of ?sustainability? has been constructed in Swedish environmental policy. This interpretation of the concept of sustainability offers the possibility of combining economic growth with ecological sustainability which stands in contrast to the assumptions of Deep Ecology and Green Theory. The aim of this essay is to explore how the concept of sustainability is being formulated in environmental policy both on a national level and in the city of Malmö.Considering these issues in a specific context, this essay focuses on city planning that is as an important instrument to promote urban sustainability both on national and local levels.

Sustainability questions that concern the subjects of environmental and social aspects are increasing in today?s society, and therefore the sustainability report is a way for companies to show their work with sustainability development by working with a clear report and follow up. As the first country in the world, Sweden has decided, as from the financial year of 2008, that all governmental owned companies should present a sustainability report according to the guidelines of GRI. The aim of this essay was to identify and analyze actual events from a sustainability aspect for Vattenfall, from a medial perspective during the time period 2005-2009. We made a content analysis of one company?s sustainability reports during a time period of five years and we connected this to the medias reports of the company from the same period, to see if there were any connections between the subjects that media had elucidated.

Social sustainability is often regarded as a solution to social problems in general. In this study, on the contrary, social sustainability is conceived as a socially constructed concept and the result of a certain way of looking at the world, the human being and the ideal society. The study centers around Kinda municipality in the southern region of Östergötland and a few of its elder inhabitants. What meaning and substance social sustainability is contained with as well as the effects that are produced by these conceptualizations is explored and analyzed. Also, the study examines the encounter between political policy?s and judgments on the one hand and the experiences and preferences held by the municipality?s elder inhabitants on the other..

Sustainability reporting in Sweden is a voluntary disclosure action for non-governmental companies. Since 2009 all state-owned companies must however publish a sustainability report according to GRI guidelines and with independent assurance statement. Three different sustainability reporting methods are primarily used: (1) Separate Sustainability Report, (2) Sustainability Report included in the Directors? Report, and (3) Sustainability Report forming part of the Printed Annual Report. The aim of this paper is to explore why some companies choose to publish a sustainability report and identify the motivational factors behind this decision, as well as attain an understanding for companies? choice of reporting method.

Humanity faces a major challenge with the climate and environmental crisis, largely driven by reckless recourse use and greenhouse gas emissions by corporations. The EU?s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) aims to standardise corporate sustainability reporting, making practices more transparent and comparable. This directive seeks to enhance sustainability practices and guide market forces towards sustainability, supporting the EU?s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The aim of this study is to find out if there is any difference between how a state-owned company and a publicly listed private company communicate its sustainability performance in its sustainability report. It also aims to find out if the communication regarding sustainability has changed over time. The poll was conducted in two Swedish companies, Sveaskog AB and AB SCA, operating in the forestry industry and through a quantitative content analysis, the companies' sustainability reports from 2005 and 2010 were examined. To get a result, the reports has been examined by the GRI framework (Global Reporting Initiative) and an assessment of the communication was made based on a scale of 0-3. The results has been evaluated based on stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory and the growing interest in CSR. The analyses found evidence that there is a link between the form of ownership of the company and how it communicates regarding sustainability.

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences between non-audited and audited sustainability reports and in that way indicate the significance of auditing to the contents of a sustainability report. The study was delimited to include three companies that create sustainability reports according to GRI guidelines, and also have changed from non-audited to audited reports.The study is an exploratory study where we started from companies that follow GRI's standard and who have changed from being non-assured to assured and certified. In order to examine any differences we have started out from corporate sustainability reports and with the basis of these latter gather those changes which may have occurred during the changeover. We therefore chose to conduct a literature review on each company's non-audited sustainability reports and compare them with each company's audited and certified sustainability reports. Furthermore our study has been made on the basis of an assessment model based on the concepts of materiality, completeness and comparability.The study showed that the audited sustainability reports in all companies were more focused and more detailed about the aspects GRI established for the performance indicators.

This study focuses on how the idea of sustainability is dealt with by companies, how the idea changes when moving through a company structure and how the different individuals interpret the idea. To date, many different studies have been written on the subject of sustainability, but few share the perspective addressed in this particular study. This case study was formed at a paper mill in the central part of Sweden. Semi-structured interviews with employees working on different hierarchical levels, within the same company, were chosen in order to get an insight into how the idea of sustainability is implemented throughout an entire company. The interviews have been transcribed to help identify contrasting patterns.This study has shown that the idea of sustainability, and its context within society, differs from how the idea is perceived in the organization.

In recent decades, demands has emerged that the companies shall take a greater social responsibility for the impact that they have on their environment and that this impact shall be reported, which is known as Sustainability Reporting. The Sustainability Report is based on a number of general principles that ensure the content and the quality of the Sustainability Report. One of these principles is the principle of completeness. In the research, this principle seems to have been interpreted in terms of number of reported aspects and indicators, which can be a limited view where only the existence of the aspects and indicators is observed. By including the degree of the reporting in terms of full, partial and no reporting as well as a comparison between the real and the alleged reporting, our intention is to extend the principle of completeness and to develop a tool that we also apply through an empirical survey in a particular area.

Corporate Social Responsiblity is today a well known concept in the business world. The concept contains responsibility and sustainability for those who chose to work with Corporate Social Responsibility and the three responsibility areas within the concept. Responsibility and sustainability is of importance, no matter what core business a corporation has. The responsibility goes both out from the corporation, to take care of the surrounding society and the environment. The responsibility also concerns the corporation interal, aiming for a sustainable work enivornment and good working conditions.

As consumers we want to know from whom we buy, what we buy and the impact the company has on our planet. In recent years there been an increasing number of scandals concerning child labour, dangerous chemicals and falsely labelled meat. A good way for companies to communicate their environmental efforts is to establish a sustainability report, where they describe their work and their impact on our environment. By concentrating on H&M?s sustainability report, as well as conducting a rhetorical analysis, we have been able to focus on the following research questions:  ? Why do companies establish CSR reports? ? How do companies gain legitimacy through their rhetorical choices? ? How do companies try to influence recipients? attitudes to the company? We begin by studying the context, which is of importance when using a rhetorical method and thereby attempt to understand in what situation the text is created.

Sustainability Reporting has emerged and transformed over the past decades as a voluntary practice by companies across industries that desire to show proof of good conduct and environmental; social; and economic responsibility. As industrial food production is one of the largest contributors to contemporary environmental problems, it might be expected that reporting within the industry would be both well established and well understood. Unfortunately, it is neither. In light of the food industry?s considerable environmental impact and the growing popularity of plant-based food as a more sustainable alternative to dairy products, this paper assesses and briefly discusses the Sustainability Reporting of two companies in the plant-based food and beverage industry. The research was designed to compare the practices of Europe-based Alpro and US-based SoDelicious, and this study has two major purposes: to describe the reporting of the case companies and to subsequently compare their practices to the other as well as to global reporting standards. The empirical study in this paper was conducted through content analysis.