När måtten blir styrning: En fallstudie om hur ESG-KPI:er integreras i en lokal bank

Sammanfattning

Background: Sustainability reporting is growing, but it says little about how the measures are actually used inside organisations. Earlier research finds a recurring gap between measuring sustainability and steering with the measures, and a risk that they become a tool for legitimacy rather than for control. Banks are an interesting case, since their sustainability impact arises in credit decisions and customer meetings rather than in physical production. Most studies, however, build on large, shareholder-driven banks, while local savings banks, which combine economic and social aims, remain underexplored. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand how a local bank integrates ESG-related KPIs to translate long-term sustainability goals into operational practice. Method: This is a qualitative, abductive case study of Sparbanken Eken. The material is five semi-structured interviews with people in different roles (community and sustainability manager, credit controller, private advisor and CEO) together with a document study of the bank's sustainability plan, strategy and business plan, sustainability risk policy, PCAF material and internal channels. The material was analysed thematically and interpreted through theory on management control and sustainability control. Conclusion: Integration is not uniform. It varies by function and is a matter of degree. In the credit process it runs deep, because a sustainability issue gains actual use in decision-making only when it can be translated into financial risk and repayment capacity. Private advisory has a formally deep structure but weak steering effect, since customers almost never ask for it, which we describe as a demand-driven decoupling. In the self-driven areas, steering is strong despite low formalisation, given short decision paths. The bank adds a fourth “economic E” about the customer's financial health, which standard frameworks miss, and part of the translation happens between banks through the wider network of savings banks. Behind that lies the savings bank's dual logic (dual bottom line), which both drives and limits its sustainability control.