Att förstå konsekvenserna av hållbarhetsrapportering : En studie om införandet av EU:s förordning om hållbarhetsrelaterade upplysningar SFDR

Sammanfattning: The provision of global bank capital and its governance has undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades. There has been a growing awareness among companies to address the environmental, social and governance issues to contribute to sustainable development. Several studies have been conducted that address the need to merge sustainability into business strategies. The banking sector is increasingly taking measures to make banking operations more sustainable, as an important tool for addressing issues of sustainable development, but also as a marketing tool. From 10 March 2021, with an implementation period until 1 January 2023, new rules on sustainability‐related disclosures in the financial services sector, were applied in the European Parliament, also known as SFDR (2019/2088/EU). The purpose of SFDR is that the new requirements will lead to a more coherent design of sustainability-related information within the financial market. The requirements refer to, among other things, that finance companies must provide information on the proportion of sales from products or services related to economic activities that are environmentally sustainable. Although the regulation indicates different types of obligations regarding what is to be disclosed and reported, this regulatory framework still lacks a clear path for the application of financial market participants, which generated the research question “What challenges do Swedish credit market companies face related to sustainability risks according to EU regulation SFDR sustainability-related information?”   To investigate the subject, a qualitative research method was applied with an abductive research method. In-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of employees at a credit market company that is under the supervision of Finansinspektionen, which are thus affected by SFDR. These interviews were supplemented by an interview with an employee at Finansinspektionen who is active in banking/sustainability. The interviews gave results in the form of identified challenges, the greatest were within; (i) lack of knowledge about sustainability in the financial industry, (ii) the introduction of SFDR in financial institutions, (iii) data management, (iv) maintenance of regulatory compliance, and (v) investment decisions related to sustainability. The analysis provided indications that challenges that were identified in previous research could be confirmed and extended. The analysis illuminated questions such as, there is a difficulty to know how the end customer works with sustainability, how far should the finance companies go in their investigations when granting credit? Several of the respondents agreed that it is difficult to make such an assessment and how far down the chain the analyzes should go; who will be ensuring quality assurance in the next stage and take care of the supervision of it?   The conclusions of this study are that the identified challenges are found mainly within; (i) the competence in sustainability in the financial industry, (ii) an increased use of resources, (iii) the collection and creation of data, and (iv) to systematize the sustainability work throughout the businesses.