Evaluation of the social impact of three case companies

Finland ranks third on the Sustainable Development Report 2019 and more than half of the Finnish large companies have adopted United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their daily work according to the FIBS’ annual sustainability survey. At the same time small and middle size business, which is the majority of Finnish companies, are not overwhelmed in incorporating SDGs in their activities. Companies are struggling with finding high-quality employees, and employees are looking for meaning and purpose in their work. The study evaluated how two Finnish companies and one internationally owned company manages sustainability in their business and particularly the social impact they intend to make in the international business environment. The thesis has two main parts: literature review and empirical research. The first section of the thesis analyzed the literature on sustainable business and corporate social responsibility (CSR) including ideas from various researchers how a company could transform from “business as usual” to sustainable business. The empirical work investigates the activities on sustainability and social impact of the three companies based on the sustainability reports, online documents, web sites and data from researches on the subject. Analysis of the data revealed that sustainability is taken seriously and several activities for making social impact in the communities were performed. There is always room for improvement in the transparency and open communication, especially when sustainability becomes more popular among consumers. Sustainability is a time and resources consuming process and it has a significant impact on the future success of the businesses