Sustainability reporting has grown in importance and transparency over the years. The reporting has in many countries gone from being voluntarily to become mandatory. This is the case within the EU, which adopted the non-financial reporting directive (2014/95/EU) in 2014. Sweden applied the directive in 2017 in the Annual Account Act. At the same time as the requirements have increased research has showed there is a gap between the content of the disclosed reports and companies' actual sustainability activities. To create a reliable and transparent external sustainability report there is a need to take internal activities into account and collect data for reporting from internal management and control systems. Previous research has also recognised that sustainability needs to be a part of the corporate strategy in order to ensure that sustainability becomes a part of the business operations. In order to contribute to a deeper understanding of any deficiencies between the information provided in sustainability reports and the internal activities the aim of this study is to investigate and explain the implementation of environmental strategies in company's management and controls system. Swedish companies operating in industries with a high environmental impact, the forest-, paper-, mining-, and steel industry, are selected as research objects in this study. A deductive method in combination with a hermeneutic method is applied. Management control systems, corporate sustainability strategy, legal requirements, the Global Reporting Initiative and accounting postulates form the theoretical framework. The empirical result shows there is a gap between the communicated environmental strategies and the implementation in the company management control system in each of the three industries. The result of the study raises questions regarding what the goal is for the communicated environmental strategies and to what extent the strategies are implemented. Another conclusion is that the companies in the three industries do not comply with the GRI framework, when reporting a limited number of environmental performance indicators. In addition, despite of a mandatory regulation for disclosing of non-financial information and the use of a common framework there is no common reporting standard for companies in the studied industries. External stakeholders need to have access to relevant non-financial information to assess companies' impact on the environment. Current legislation and standard frameworks provide a high level of flexibility regarding what to report. In order to achieve a common standard this study shows a need to add a conceptual sustainable framework for accounting and reporting, enforcement mechanisms and regulated common standards to achieve a more transparent and reliable reporting practice.
This dissertation studies the development of the environmental issue from a discursive perspective. Through an analysis of views on nature and the environment in several NGOs and main political organs, the dissertation tries to explain how a certain view became hegemonic. The analysis pertains to the period between the publication of Silent Spring in 1962 and the introduction of the concept sustainable development by the UN in 1987. From a realistic starting point and with critical discourse analysis (CDA) as its method, the dissertation aims to identify causal powers and mechanisms that have generated and institutionalized the environmental discourse. An analytical model is developed and applied on three levels; a sociolinguistic, institutional, and macrosocial level; which also reflect the methodological progression of the study from description to explanation. The result shows that the discursive practice was hegemonized by a Western view promoting economic growth. This discourse gradually gained ground at the expense of an anti-systemic discourse which posited structural societal changes as the answer to environmental problems. Mechanisms such as the exclusion of some views and actors from common discursive practices were crucial for the process of homogenizing the discourse and developing consensus. Through incorporating that part of the environmental movement which did not fight the dominant economic and political system, the UN turned it into support for its own project, which is part of the process of hegemony. At the same time the environmental objectives of the hegemonic discourse were established in the institutional spheres. The institutionalization of the environmental issue changed the focus from social critique to a question of development and technology, something which helped displace the original critical and partially anti-systemic character of environmental discourse. Through turning the critical and negative account of the situation into a more harmonious and hopeful vision, for instance in terms of sustainable development, a foundation was laid for the later development of ecological modernization. When the hegemonic discourse invested the concept of sustainable development with emphases on progress and economic growth, it encapsulated the environmental issue within the framework of the prevailing social system. ; With summary in English and Spanish/Con resumen en inglés y en español
Knowledge and valuation of ecosystem services are important components for reaching the governmental goals for improving the natural environments. Recreational fishing has more than one million practitioners nationwide.Knowledge about the fishers and their catches increases the ability to assess whether the ecosystem services are retained. In addition, it gives means for evaluating the actions for the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of oceans, lakes and rivers. Knowledge of recreational fishing is also needed in order to follow up the details in its environmental objectives relating to outdoor recreation, tourism industry and the governmental goals in the open-air policy. The EU's common fisheries policy, the Swedish environmental policy and Swedish fisheries policy all emphasize that ecosystem-based management should be implemented. Thus, there are needs for knowledge of the ecosystems which are exploited by humans. Fish populations are important components of aquatic ecosystems, and are affected by the surrounding environment, while they themselves affect the structures of the aquatic food-webs. Fishes often have regulatory functions in the ecosystems, and thereby contribute to valuable ecosystem services in addition to the more obvious services as providing food and recreation for humans. Mostly issues regarding the impacts of fishing-related activities on fish populations have been focused on commercial fishing. A widespread and intensive commercial fishing may lead to the depletion of stocks or, at worst, a collapse of the fish populations; the fish population reaching such low levels that recovery may be difficult. In recent years the knowledge of the impact of recreational fishing on aquatic systems has increased, but still the effects of recreational fishing on ecosystem are relatively poorly studied, compared to commercial fisheries. For many, it may be difficult to accept that recreational fishing may affect fish populations; each fisher/angler favour just their own fisheries without bearing in mind that although the small influence from each individual fisherman may be small, it will be significant when many fishermen harvest from the same stock. Recreational fishing and its effects on the aquatic ecosystems are often neglected in fisheries science, mainly due to the lack of data to estimate recreational fishing harvest with a sufficient resolution to calculate the effort and landings of recreational fisheries. In this report, we try to give an overall picture of the fish species needing increased knowledge in order to get an estimate of harvest in recreational fisheries and thereby the effect on fish populations. Furthermore, we also try to give a picture of international studies and finally to give examples of methods concerning how and to what extent one may conduct studies in Sweden. Our proposal is largely based on combining different surveys in specific areas that we believe can be used to scale-up the results. We suggest data collation of recreational fishing is concentrated to areas with public waters, because in other water bodies the land owner has sovereignty under the law. The focus areas we point out are those already having some data collection, both in terms of recreational fishing and environmental monitoring / stock assessment and where there are non-fishing protective areas nearby. Collection of data should not be made in all areas at every year; three areas are suggested to become intensive areas (data collection every year) and the remaining areas data collection will take place every three years - on a rolling schedule. The sampling methods we recommend are national survey (i.e. mail and telephone surveys), recording of catches in fishing tourism, voluntary catch registration of individual anglers, collection of data from fishing competitions, on-site inventory of fishing effort (e.g. count fetter and trailers), inventory of catch per effort (e.g. by creel-surveys) and fish tagging studies. For the west coast we propose one focus area, Älgöfjorden. At the coasts of Bohuslän County and the northern part of Halland County the fishing pressure is high for lobster and crab and therefore a focus area should be established in this area. We suggest that data are collected by on-site visits for inventorying fishing effort (counting numbers of pots / buoys / fishing people), combined with catch registration can return an estimates on catch per effort, and this can then be applied to a larger area. Another potential focus area is the area around Torhamn (Blekinge) which, for example, is popular area recreational fishing for pike. Torhamn is one of three national reference areas for coastal fish monitoring on the East Coast and has been monitored since 2002. It is also desirable to study aspects of fishing mortality in recreational fisheries. To our knowledge, there are no national studies that have explored the effects of catch-and-release in natural environments over long periods of time. The Bråviken Bay is a relatively limited and well-defined area having considered high recreational fishing pressure, but large time series from fish monitoring programmes are lacking. This site will give good opportunities for studying pike, pikeperch and to some extent also sea trout, data collection is suggested to take place every third year. An adjacent area is Kvädöfjärden having fish monitoring time series from 1989. Closely situated to Kvädöfjärden is Licknevarpefjärden where fishing has been prohibited since 1970. Additional areas that are of interest to follow up with some regularity are Asköfjärden, Gålö and / or Lagnö in the Stockholm archipelago. In the future it might be fruitful to shift data collection intensity between Torhamn in Blekinge and an area in Stockholm archipelago. Such decision should be based on factors like where the most practical solutions / contact network can be found. In the Gulf of Bothnia angling with nets, traps and similar gears are relatively widespread. We suggest that Långvind Bay in Gävleborg County, is an area for the study of recreational fishing in a relatively sparsely populated county and is most likely typical for large parts of the Gulf of Bothnia. Data collection is suggested to take place every year. As for the Gulf of Bothnia the recreational fishery in the Bothnian Bay are mainly targeting the whitefish, sea trout and, to some extent also perch. By monitoring the recreational fisheries in Kinnbäcksfjärden near Piteå, we hope to be able to describe the local recreational fishing patterns and then apply these values for catch per effort for most of the coastal strip of the Bothnian Bays. Recreational fishing is widespread in all of the five largest lakes in Sweden, and there is a need for data collection in all five. In Lake Vänern, Lake Vättern and Lake Mälaren there are fish monitoring data of good quality and regularity. However, in the two smallest lakes, Lake Hjälmaren and Lake Storsjön in Jämtland County, few test fishing areas and few studies regarding recreational fishing have been made. For Lake Vättern we suggest that data collection is done every year; especially the archipelago in the northern part of the lake will be an excellent area for the study of recreational fishing for pike. In the other four lakes we propose that data collection is made every third year. By studying recreational fishing - its practitioners, scope, gear-use, and harvest, it will be possible to achieve a more detailed view of how recreational fishing is done and how it varies along the Swedish coast and in the five largest lakes. Such knowledge is important for the managers of common fisheries resources and the monitoring of environmental status and evaluating the recreational goals established by the Swedish governments.
This study takes as its point of departure the theorizing on citizenship and globalization. Today it is common to discuss a "flexible" citizenship beyond the paradigm of the nationstate, which, besides its legal aspects of rights and obligations, also includes identification with and participation in various communities, primarily political ones. "Politics", in this context, is considered to be constituted on the micro-level, discursively between individuals (e.g. Laclau and Mouffe 1985). The aim of the study is to, through the study of collective meaning making, contribute to the theory building about citizenship and globalization. The study consists of three cases, each of which attracted much media attention, with varying degrees of proximity and distance. The construction of political community, on various levels on the globalization scale (subnational, national, transnational) within the collective meaning making, is studied. The aim of the study also includes the analysis of the discursive resources that are used for the making of meaning. "External" discourses such as media messages and interpersonal communication are analyzed as well as "internal" ones: e.g. values, norms, identifications and experiences. In addition, the study aims at localizing the construction of meaning and community within the structural context , and relating it to current structures of power. The thesis is concluded with a suggestion of how to relate the discursive construction of political identity to deliberative democracy theory. The empirical material is collected by means of focus-groups interviews, including 2–5 people, with a total of 133 respondents. The transcribed material is analyzed by means of critical discourse analysis, CDA. The study identifies two different types of identity constructions: processes of nationalization, where the experienced Swedish identity and community function normatively in the making of meaning, and processes of subnationalization, among those groups that somehow felt excluded from and mistreated by the national (Swedish) environment. The thesis concludes that the collective making of meaning within an assumed national community contains ideological elements and works to a large extent in the service of power. However, the subnationally compressed communities create meaning in an oppositional manner, compared with the nationalized community and in relation to structures of power. Active citizenship is thus best located in conflict, among groups that experience exclusion and oppression in different situations (Mouffe 1995b). If this is right, the focus must shift from consensus to communication, efforts to open up discursive bridges between the hegemonic community and dissident voices should be made (c.f. Aronowitz 1995). An important space for transgressing communication is of course the media. However, the study shows that the media must deal with some problems before they are ready to serve as discursive bridges, for instance the tendency to make the factual antagonisms subordinate to homogenizing emotional reporting. In addition, there seems to exist a need for the political institutions to move beyond the paradigm of the nation-state, and find other frameworks for the democratic processes, not least at the subnational level. Thus, instead of discussing either a global or a national citizenship one could, with Habermas (2001), reflect on a postnational citizenship relating to the reflexive transformation of national civic sovereignty into subnational and supranational citizenship.
