3.2.3 Voluntary sustainability reporting

Although sustainability reporting in Sweden has a mandatory approach, given the national Government requirements for state-owned companies and the European Commission’s sustainability reporting requirements, the Swedish largest companies go beyond what is legally required by the EU in their sustainability disclosures using different international guidelines. Among others, companies often report following guidelines and principles such as, the CDP (former Carbon Disclosure Project), the Global Reporting Initiative, the International Integrated Reporting Council, the UN Global Compact, the UN’s guiding principles on business and human rights, the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment and the OECD’s guidelines for multinational enterprises.12In Sweden over 90% of the companies refers to the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines.3

On a national level, Sweden has been encouraging the corporate sector through developing sustainability initiatives and creating organizations specialized in providing sustainability information and advice, as the following.

The Stockholm Stock Exchange encourages and supports Environmental, Social and Governance disclosure of its listed companies, however, Environmental, Social and Governance disclosure is not yet a listing requirement. NASDAQ’s seven Nordic and Baltic exchanges have committed to publish guidance on Environmental, Social and Governance disclosure for their listed companies by the end of 2016.4 Following-up on their commitment, these stock excahnges launched their ESG reporting guidance on 23 March 2017.5 The guidance is aligned with the UN Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) 2015 recommendations and with the World Federation of Exchanges’ Sustainability Working Group (chaired by NASDAQ).67The NASDAQ’s new ESG Reporting Guide 2.0 as been published in May 2019.8The Stockholm Stock Exchange ranked in the fourth position on the Corporate Knights World’s Stock Exchanges ranking 2016.9 Being in the top 5, it was the best qualification of the Stockholm Stock Exchange since 2012.10 62 large companies part of the stock exchange were analyzed in seven Environmental, Social and Governance metrics.11 In 2017 ranked in the 2nd position and in 2018 the situation has dramatically changed and it is ranked in the 15th position.1213

Amongst the most relevant organizations representing the Swedish industry and providing, among others, sustainability related information are i) The Sveriges Forum För Hållbara Investeringar (Swesif) is Sweden’s Sustainable Investment Forum, the Swedish equivalent of the Eurosif (European Social Investment Forum),14 and was founded in 2003. It has approximately 20 members, with the long-term goals of, among others, to increase knowledge about sustainable investment in Sweden, to become a network for exchanging knowledge and experience and be a channel to the legislative work within the EU through their membership in Eurosif;15 ii) the CSR Sweden, is a business driven network founded in 2004 to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices amongst Swedish companies;16 iii) the Sustainable Investment Research Platform (SIRP) is an international and interdisciplinary research program funded by the Swedish Mistra Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research in 2006-2012. SIRP’s research focuses on how sustainable investment practices can create added value for institutional investors and identify barriers to mainstreaming such practices. The research was led by Professor Lars Hassel at Umeå School of Business;17 iv) the Global Engagement Services is a Swedish leader providing sustainability research and analysis services, founded in 2003 with headquarters in Stockholm. The Global Engagement Services partners with, among others, the Nasdaq OMX, with which it has created the index family of sustainability and ethical indexes on the Nordic markets.18