Do creditors reward sustainable supply chains? : a study on how scope 3 emissions affect the cost of debt of European firms

Sammanfattning: In context of the forthcoming Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, this study examines how scope 3 emissions and the reporting thereof affect the cost of debt. Further, it investigates how scope 1 emissions affect the cost of debt and how the two scopes differ in materiality. As a theoretical foundation, this thesis uses previous research on environmental risk management, carbon risk premium, scope 3 emissions and cost of capital. By collecting a sample of 1710 firm-year observations for publicly listed European companies during the period 2019-2022, this quantitative study utilizes fixed effect regression models to find the relationship between scope 3 emission and cost of debt. No evidence of a relationship between scope 3 emissions and cost of debt is found. When looking at scope 1 emissions, the results show that companies with lower scope 1 emissions are rewarded by creditors with a reduced cost of debt. Regarding reporting of scope 3 emissions, we find no evidence suggesting that scope 3 disclosure lowers the cost of debt.