Browsing by study line "Global hållbarhet"

The supervisory expectations directed towards banks and other financial institutions to integrate, identify and manage climate-related risks has increased substantially during the past decade. The transition towards a de-carbonized economy creates risks and opportunities for financial institutions. The European Central Bank (ECB) has identified climate-related risks as one of the key drivers in the euro area requiring a forward-looking approach to be taken into consideration while dealing with these risks. One of the main ongoing tasks in the area is the identification and classification of environmentally sustainable activities. The objective of this Master’s thesis is to examine the effect that the reported greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the implementation of an emission reduction strategy have on corporate repayment capacity, calculated through external credit ratings. Previous literature has found a relationship between companies’ creditworthiness and environmental factors, but the results vary depending on the applied variables. The typical approach used in prior studies is the application of aggregated values of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors or limiting the analysis to specific industries or countries. The theoretical framework for this thesis rests mainly on previous academic research on the topic and publications by supervisory bodies. The data comprises 593 corporations from 37 countries operating in different industries over the years 2015-2019. The value of the probability of default (PD) is deployed as a measure of corporate repayment capacity. The climate-related variables and financial ratios were provided by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Standard and Poor’s (S&P). The relationship between corporate repayment capacity and the climate-related variables was analysed using a panel data multivariate regression model, specifically the ordinary least squares (OLS) method. The results of this study indicate that emission intensity levels contribute statistically in a negative and significant way to corporate credit ratings, implying that higher levels of emissions lead to a higher PD. On the other hand, having an emission reduction target contributes positively and significantly to corporate repayment capacity, indicating that having this target leads to a lower PD. The analysed climate-related variables were statistically more significant in industries considered to consist of high emitting companies, as opposed to low emitting ones.

Energy consumption of apartment buildings account for a significant part of European Union’s total greenhouse gas emissions and improving the energy efficiency of buildings is a major part of reaching Union’s climate goals. To reach these goals the EU has revised some of its legislation and one of the latest reforms is the complete revision of Energy Efficiency of Buildings directive in 2018. Directives article 14 decreed that member states need to implement energy efficiency measures on large apartment buildings and to meet these measures member states were given three options on how to implement article 14. Finland implemented the article with so called voluntary advice method. The goal of this study is to understand the conclusion of the national implementation of article 14 and explain it with implementation theory. The study tries to understand what factors led to the implementation of voluntary advice method and whether this selection can be explained with implementation theory. Study design is one case explanatory case study. Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted for this research and the material was analysed with qualitative methods. All the interviewees were either officials in charge of the implementation or experts and researchers who took part in the implementation process. The study shows that the factors leading up to the selected implementation method were earlier experiences from other implementations, the straightforward nature of implementing advice method and the cost estimates between the given implementation options. It also became clear that the method was favoured by the officials, experts and target group and this volition might have affected the result. Study helps to understand the process of implementing EU legislation in a member state, what challenges officials face during the implementation and what kind of expectations steer the process. The study found out that previous implementation methods may have a significant impact on the implementation of revised directives. Study also verified the factors affecting implementation defined by implementation theories.

In recent years, the role of economic models in guiding government policy has provoked discussion as human wellbeing and the state of the environment are threatened by multiple sustainability challenges, most notably by the ecological sustainability crisis. The mainstream economic approach has received criticism since it has not been able to solve these challenges and thus, several alternative approaches in pursuit for a just and sustainable future have gained popularity both nationally and internationally. In this thesis I focus on the wellbeing economy concept in the Finnish welfare state in the early 2020s. Wellbeing economy was introduced in Finland by the Finnish Federation for Social Affairs and Wealth (SOSTE) in 2012 to highlight the interdependency of human wellbeing and economy. The concept has since been developed and realized by different actors of the society, but it is not yet that well-known among the public. To find out the potential role of this new economic approach in the transition towards sustainable welfare society, it is important to get a clear picture of how the concept is interpreted by its advocates. Therefore, in my case study, I examined the expert narratives of wellbeing economy. My main research question is: What does the concept of wellbeing economy mean in Finland in the early 2020s? This question is complemented by two sub-questions: 1) What are the shared contents and practices associated with wellbeing economy? and 2) What are the key differences between different conceptions of wellbeing economy? The underlying disagreements in theory and in practice of wellbeing economy might impact the integrity of the concept even if the concept formulation of wellbeing economy seems consistent. I conducted seven (7) semi-structured expert interviews from five (5) different organizations during the spring 2021. The interviews were thematically analysed with a focus on the memes of neoliberal narratives and the memes of alternative narratives as well as the conflicting memes in alternative narratives. In this study, a meme is defined as the structural component of a narrative. Finally, I identified similarities and differences in these building blocks of wellbeing economy narratives between different experts. I found that there were more shared memes than differences in the experts’ conceptions of wellbeing economy. Most of the interviewees mentioned memes of neoliberal narrative. All the interviewees mentioned the alternative narrative memes connected networks, sustainability, cooperation with others, and human dignity, prosperity, and wellbeing. Most of them also considered the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity in crisis. However, the meme a new economic system created the greatest division in the interpretations of wellbeing economy. In conclusion, some interviewees supported the neoliberalism more clearly while others opposed this narrative, and the rest were not clearly for or against the growth-agenda. The ambiguity of the concept especially in terms of economic growth should be further discussed in addition to specifying, for instance, what is meant by sustainability and wellbeing in wellbeing economy. Further research is also needed to find out how the discussion about wellbeing economy concept will develop in Finland and internationally.