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Sustainability in Public Pension Funds? A Longitudinal Study of the Council on Ethics of the Swedish AP Funds
Kumla Kommun/Stadshus, Kumla, Sweden.
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. (Democratic Government in Change)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3602-1837
2021 (English)In: Sustainability, E-ISSN 2071-1050, Vol. 13, no 1, article id 429Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Are public pension funds taking sustainability values into serious consideration? This question is addressed by analyzing annual reports of The Council on Ethics in the Swedish public pension system, which has a clear mission from The Swedish Government to consider sustainability values. The council was established in 2007 and supports four funds with advice. This article studies empirically how the council’s expression of words connected to different values has changed over time as well as how it practically reasons in situations of value conflicts. The quantitative data shows that words indicative of “sustainability values” have considerably increased. As a contrast, the critical discourse analysis shows that the council often reasons in a general, loose way about preferable solutions, while more practical claims for action are largely lacking or are vague in relation to sustainable development. The underlying rationale is very much in line with the discourse of economic rationalism. Thus, the quantitative findings suggest an emerging sustainability discourse, while the qualitative analysis clearly indicates that an economic rationale continues to underpin the council’s practical reasoning. However, it is concluded that this is not a simple case of green washing documents but rather a slow train moving towards green institutional change.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2021. Vol. 13, no 1, article id 429
Keywords [en]
sustainability, public pension funds, Council on Ethics, critical discourse analysis, economic rationalism
National Category
Political Science
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-88472DOI: 10.3390/su13010429ISI: 000606361400001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85099772760OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-88472DiVA, id: diva2:1516848
Projects
Green Public Ethics
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 2018-00912Available from: 2021-01-12 Created: 2021-01-12 Last updated: 2023-12-08Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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