Norwegian Institutional Investors and Sustainability Reporting

Institutional investors are considered major actors in the Norwegian market and have the ability to influence its environment to act more sustainably towards environmental, social, and governmental considerations. As sustainability has been prominent globally, many institutional investors have adopted this as a consideration in their investment strategies. As a result, they have also required more thorough insight into sustainability in entities they wish to invest in. This also demands more non-financial reporting, such as sustainability reporting. This master thesis has examined how the current quality of sustainability reporting affects institutional investors' investment decisions. The master thesis was conducted as a qualitative study, with semi structured interviews with institutional investors in Norway. The purpose was to fill in what was discovered to be gaps in existing literature domestically in terms of quality, greenwashing, and how reporting influences institutional investors' decisions. This study has found that institutional investors experience poor quality of sustainability reports, high Due Diligence costs, and a lack of transparency while implementing ESG into their decision making process. Consequently, this study purports that more thorough and detailed legislation on the requirements for sustainability reporting should be implemented