Hållbarhetsincitament i praktiken: Motivation eller kontroll? En kvalitativ studie om användningen av incitament för att främja hållbarhetsengagemang i svenska fastighetsbolag

Sammanfattning

The real estate sector plays a significant role in the transition toward environmental sustainability due to its extensive energy use, long-term investments and environmental impact. While previous research has emphasized the importance of employee engagement for successful sustainability work, less is known about how organizations use sustainability-related incentives to foster such engagement. Based on a qualitative research design, using seven semi-structured interviews with sustainability managers at Swedish real estate companies, this thesis examines the use of incentives to steer, support and promote employees’ engagement in environmental sustainability work. Drawing on Self-Determination theory, the study analyzes how these incentives can be understood as autonomy-supportive or controlling, and how they in turn relate to employee environmental sustainability engagement.Findings indicate that sustainability-related incentives are used both formally and informally. Formal incentives, such as goals, routines and financial rewards, tend to be more controlling and in turn support a more operationalized, role-based and requirement-driven sustainability engagement. Informal incentives, such as communication, recognition and education appear better at satisfying what the self-determination theory identify as the three basic psychological needs. Consequently, these incentives tend to form an autonomy-supportive work context which encourages a more transformative, creative and voluntary sustainability engagement. However, formal incentives may also provide meaning, competence and direction rather than merely control and provide conditions for internalization. By distinguishing between different forms of sustainability engagements and relating them to incentive types, the study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how incentives can be used to support environmental sustainability work in real estate organizations.