Title: EU-Taxonomy, beneficial or detrimental: the Taxonomy impact among Swedish forest industries.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to create a better understanding and describe how the EU-taxonomy may affect the Swedish forest industry sustainability report. The purpose is to also to examinate how the industry prepares and handles the implementation of the new EU regulation. In this thesis we also describe how the taxonomy may affect companies’ legitimacy and their relationship between different internal and external stakeholders to the company.

Methodology: The methodology is based on qualitative research to gather data. The data consists of interviews with representatives for selected companies within the forest industry. Purpose sampling was used in order to select the respondents. The interviews have then been analyzed thru a qualitative content analysis.

Findings: Overall the EU-taxonomy was received with positivity. The respondents confirmed the need of a classification system for sustainability development. Which is the intention of the regulation. The outcome of the taxonomy correlates to how external stakeholders, such as the financial institution and banks, interpreters and acts regarding the new EU-regulation. The impact the regulation will have on the relationship with stakeholders and companies’ legitimacy is still early to answer but it may have an effect due to its new standard for what is considers sustainable. The regulation has given companies an increased administrative burden, partly due to the ambiguity of what is to be reported in the regulation, but also its richness of detail. How the regulation will affect companies’ sustainability report is still early to answer. Many of the companies believe it won ́t have a major effect and will be a separate report on their websites. All companies report that the regulation does not consider the benefits of the products of wood materials, nor the entire value chain in the forest industry, which can lead to political greenwashing.