All state-owned companies in Sweden will be required to produce annual sustainability reports from 2009.
In May 2007, the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications published an analysis of the sustainability reports issued by approximately twenty government-owned companies. The analysis was made by PricewaterhouseCoopers Sustainable Business Solutions together with the recently formed CSR consultancy Samhällsnytta AB, specializing on business development based on CSR-perspective. The analysis was followed in the end of 2007 by a government decision on new requirements for financial and sustainability reporting applying the Global Reporting Initiatives’ (GRI) Guidelines for Sustainability Reporting by state owned companies. As the first government in the world, the Swedish government now requires that Swedish state-owned companies present, from 2009, sustainability reports for which an independent assurance statement is provided in accordance with GRI’s reporting guidelines.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Sustainable Business Solutions has advised the Swedish government on this initiative.
In the first move of its kind in the world, the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications announced last month that the regulation would apply to all 55 Swedish companies with some element of state ownership.
Each will be expected to file independently assured reports in accordance with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines.
Minister for enterprise and energy Maud Olofsson, who is responsible for the ruling, said she wanted state-owned companies 'to set an example and to be at the leading edge' of sustainability and good practice. She added that the government would like to see all large Swedish companies reporting in this way, and that the new regulation showed the 'highly pitched ambitions' it had in the field.
In many European countries privatization has dramatically reduced the size and scale of public sector businesses, but in Sweden state-owned companies remain important to the economy, having around 190,000 employees and an estimated value of SEK675billion (£51bn, $102bn).
Among businesses affected are telecoms firm TeliaSonera, lottery operator Svenska Spel, Nordea Bank, railway firm SJ and the national forest enterprise Sveaskog.
The 40 wholly state-owned companies will have to start work this spring in order to meet the 2009 deadline. In the case of the 15 partly owned businesses, the government will negotiate with the other shareholders to try to ensure that sustainability reporting is adopted.
