Hållbarhetsredovisning inom skogsindustrin : Att uppnå jämförbarhet

Sustainable development and issues of social responsibility has become a part of everyday business and there are great expectations from customers and other stakeholders to disclose how they actively are working with sustainable development. The overall purpose of this report is to develop the key factors that should be included in sustainability reports in the forest industry in order to facilitate comparability and analysis of auditors' roles in the design and verification of the reports. The reports compares and analyzes the sustainability reports from the three largest forest companies in Norrbotten; Billerud, Sveaskog and SCA. Data has been collected through interviews because it gives more information from the respondents, which suits the purpose of the study. The companies’ sustainability reports include environmental, social and economic factors. Since each respondent individually has ranked four factors in each area, this report has taken forward a summary of the key factors in the forest industry. If all firms in the sector would report these factors and state accounting policies and made boundaries, a greater comparability between the companies would be achieved. That there is a new and not fully developed way to design sustainability reports is confirmed after analyzing all the interviews and respondents' thoughts and responses. The different interpretation from the auditors regarding the GRI guidelines shows that a development of these frameworks is necessary. The majority of the respondents in this report are requesting clearer information from the companies in the reports regarding to GAAP and boundaries that are made to enhance the comparability. They considered that this is what mainly missing today. In the case of auditors' roles there are three which are present: consultant, designer and reviewer. Auditing ensures the quality and thereby increases the comparability, because mistakes are detected and corrected. It is clear that the Swedish forest industries is focused on sustainable development and have this as a clear route mapped out for the future. Their work with sustainability has come a long way but there remain several challenges still remaining.Validerat; 20111213 (anonymous