Miljöredovisning, i användarens intresse? : en studie av tre skogsbolag

Sammanfattning: Since the Bruntlandreport was published 1987, companies have shown their environmental commitment through an environmental account. Companies started these accounts because their rivals started having them and today most large companies have a environmental account or sustainable development report. The information given by the companies have been seen as slanted, and others see it only as a part of the image production for the companies. There have been several investigations of the stakeholders of environmental reports and it is not clear who is the primary stakeholder, in other words who actually reads them. All different stakeholders have different views of what an environmental account should encompass. Therefore, there are differences in opinion of the use of environmental reports, between the companies and other stakeholders. One of the main issues is the primary use of these accounts. Which stakeholder generates the largest utility from them and also, whether or not, the forestindustry reports on relevant and up to date information. Our aim with this theses is to see if forest industry's environmental accounts give the information and produce the utility which stakeholders request. Furthermore, this paper will show what incentives the different actors have to use environmental accounts, and, finally illustrate who are the primary and secondary stakeholders for the forestindustry. The forest industry is the industry which has had the largest need for environmental consciousness. The forest has a large effect on the environment both through the photosynthesis and the carbon dioxide balance. The forest industry in Sweden is among the industrial leaders when it comes environmental consciousness and concerns. This is one of the reason that we choose to look at this particular industry. We have used relevant and up to date stakeholder theories as a base for our study. The theories we use are the stakeholder model, the guidelines for environmental accounts, the state's constraints and the motives for environmental accounts. The study is made in a "actors point of view" of the three forest enterprises and different stakeholders. The three corporations we used are Holmen, SCA and Sveaskog. And from these we have also interviewed presumptive stakeholders. These stakeholders have been forest suppliers, shareholders, environmental groups, insurance companies, fund firms and authorities. The reason for finding environmental accounts in many corporations, in spite of the fact that it is not a legal obligation, is partly due to the norm that "everyone does it". Many firms also admit that another reason is to avoid the badwill that may arise from lack of such information. When environmental accounts first were introduced it was seen as something necessary for the people who were affected and for the firms reputation. The intended stakeholders at the time was primarily the local population and the employees. Today, basing it on the three companies used in this study, we can see that the primary stakeholders today have a much larger commercial incentive for the environmental accounts. The primary stakeholders still consists of employees, but also their customers, suppliers and fund firms. Customers want to see environmental friendly goods from the start to end and this includes financial institutions with environmental and ethical norms. Environmental groups are also important stakeholders, though their role has changes overtime. Thesedays, they often try to cooperate with the different firms. This is done through feedback and an active dialogue to reach better results.