Law for mandatory sustainability report

The Government submitted a legislative proposal in a Council on Legislation the 19th of May 2016. The legislative proposal has a background from an EU Directive and the idea is that it should be mandatory to issue sustainability reports for some large companies, as from the financial year beginning on the 1st of January 2017 or later. The proposal is expected to affect about 2,000 Swedish companies.

The proposal applies to all organizational forms covered by the Annual Accounts Act. A sustainability report should, as proposed, either be a part of the management report, alternatively be a separate report. The content does not need to be certified by an auditor, but the auditor shall mention that the report has been prepared.

For these large companies that are listed, there also requires a presentation of the company's diversity policy as a part of its corporate governance report.

The limits that the legislative proposal defines for a large company is that the company, for two years, met more than one of the following limits:

Average number of employees: 250 people
Balance sheet: total SEK 175 million
Net turnover: SEK 350 million
In addition: large groups of parent large, listed and financial companies