GLOBAL REPORT INITIATIVE SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING COMPARABILITY : A STUDY OF 3 SWEDISH COMPANIES IN THE RETAIL SECTOR

Sammanfattning: This study aims to analyze and explore the issue of inter-firm comparability of sustainability performance focusing on energy, through the qualitative content analysis of 3 GRI sustainability reports of the retail sector firms. The study examines 3 Swedish retail companies based on data from last year's GRI sustainability reports and focuses exclusively on the energy aspect. The current study provides an answer to the following research question: "Can different companies from the retail industry be compared based on the energy indicator data published in the GRI reports?" In the study, the author analyzes three reports of the retail companies, in particular Kappahl, Lindex, and H&M. For this, the author chose the method of qualitative content analysis. The research process was as follows. From the very beginning, eight keywords were chosen. Three out of eight keywords were excluded. The following keywords remained - energy efficiency, energy consumption, energy use, renewable energy, electricity consumption. Then the textual data was quantified, the visible and the obvious in the text was extracted and described (Results), and thereafter qualitative assessment was made (Discussion and Analysis). To answer this research question, the author had to carefully examine each keyword and category (theme) independently and see if the information about a particular keyword and category (theme) could be compared across different reports. The findings of this study indicate the following. Some of the categories (themes) can be compared, however, not all the categories (themes) are possible to compare. Since not all the categories can be compared, this factor does make overall comparability difficult. Hence, in general, it can be inferred that the GRI energy indicator cannot be compared.