Environmental Management and its related Financial and Environmental Performance Measurements : A study within Swedish Retail

Abstract: Company managers have increasingly adopted environmental management in the 2000’s, and the relationship between environmental management and financial performance has been a subject for discussion during the last decades because of inconsistent results. The aim of this study is to investigate this relationship between environmental management and financial performance within companies, and to analyse how Swedish retail companies are evaluating the environmental and financial results from environmental management. The methodology used for the study is a literature review to capture the current knowledge area in research, a study of companies’ sustainability reports and an interview study to collect empirical evidence from the retail sector. The literature study shows a positive result between environmental performance and financial performance, a positive relationship between environmental management and financial performance, and non-conclusive data of the relationship between environmental management systems and financial performance. Furthermore it shows that companies are measuring and reporting environmental performance but no or few companies are reporting the financial outcome from environmental management, however companies seem to measure cost savings from environmental management. From this study, no consensus of a general methodology of the measuring of the financial outcomes from environmental management has been found. The findings are not representing the entire retail sector and should rather be seen as empirical evidence from a number of retail companies. The conclusion made was that the ambitions within environmental management differ within one industry sector, and that there seem to be no general methodology for measuring the financial outcome from environmental management.