DEPARTMENT OF TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMICS 
DIVISION OF SUPPLY AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT  

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY 
Gothenburg, Sweden 2020 
www.chalmers.se	
Report No. E2020:118 

The 6Ts of Social Sustainability 
Communication 
A comprehensive and easy-to-use framework for 
communication with organisational customers 
Master’s thesis in Supply Chain Management 
	
 
 
ADAM KJELLBERG 
MATHIAS MAGNERIUS 
 
 



	
	
 
	
	

 
 

  



 
REPORT NO. E 2020:118 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

The 6Ts of Social Sustainability 
Communication 

 
A comprehensive and easy-to-use framework for 

communication with organisational customers 
 

A. KJELLBERG 
M. MAGNERIUS 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

Department of Technology Management and Economics 

Division of Supply and Operations Management 

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY 

Gothenburg, Sweden 2020  



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The 6Ts of Social Sustainability Communication 
A comprehensive and easy-to-use framework for communication with organisational customers 
A. KJELLBERG 
M. MAGNERIUS 
 
 
© A. KJELLBERG, 2020. 
© M. MAGNERIUS, 2020. 
 
 
Report no. E2020:118 
Department of Technology Management and Economics 
Chalmers University of Technology 
SE-412 96 Göteborg 
Sweden 
Telephone + 46 (0)31-772 1000 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cover: 
The illustration refers to the 6T framework created through this study 
 
 
 
Gothenburg, Sweden 2020



The 6Ts of Social Sustainability Communication A comprehensive
and easy-to-use framework for communication with organisational
customers

A. KJELLBERG
M. MAGNERIUS

Department of Technology Management and Economics
Chalmers University of Technology

SUMMARY
This study investigates how a large Swedish company within the hygiene and health
industries can improve the way they communicate about social sustainability with
their organisational customers. The company, which is called Essity, have a strong
social sustainability profile and may have the potential to gain a competitive
advantage if this is communicated more e�ectively in the market. Social
sustainability is a concept which is characterised by vagueness and low
quantifiability, leading to communication challenges. However, it is becoming
increasingly evident that achievements in this field can give industrial companies a
competitive advantage so Essity see value in improving their communication
practices. This study utilizes action research methodology including semi-structured
interviews and grounded theory to answer the research questions. From this, a novel
framework called “The 6Ts for Social Sustainability Communication” is proposed.
This is a comprehensive and easy-to-use framework which can be used by managers
within Essity as well as other companies to guide them when laying out strategies
for communicating about social sustainability with their organisational customers.
The framework consists of six key principles: tailored content, taking initiative,
tangible examples, training, transparency, and truthfulness.

Keywords: Social sustainability, communication, value proposition, procurement,
business-to-business, supply chain & competitive advantage.



PREFACE

This report presents the results of our research within communication of social
sustainability of the Master’s degree in Supply Chain Management at Chalmers
University of Technology. The research was carried out in collaboration with Essity,
and their sustainable sourcing department. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic,
the work was performed from distance.

We would first like to give a great thanks to our supervisor at Essity: Stefan
Henricson who has been kind enough to guide us through the research and provide
us with valuable insight. All of which improved the project. We would also like to
thank the people internally at Essity who participated in the interviews, providing
us with interesting data on how Essity manage social sustainability in their
communication.

Secondly, a tremendous thanks to all of the people from external organisations who
participated in the interviews. All of you provided us with significant data and we
are grateful to each and everyone.

From the university, we would like to thank our supervisor Patricia van Loon, you
mentored us throughout the processes and gave us important feedback in order to
guide us in the right path. For this we are above all thankful.

I (Adam) would like to thank my colleague and dear friend Mathias for doing a
tremendous work throughout the research, it has been a joy working with you.

I (Mathias) would like to thank you as well Adam, we have worked together many
times during our time at Chalmers and it has always been a pleasure. You have
become a dear friend of mine and I look forward to a bright future for both of us.

We have both enjoyed working with this research, the topic is of high interest for
both of us and we hope to inspire more people to carry out research within social
sustainability.

Adam Kjellberg & Mathias Magnerius

Gothenburg, December 2020



ABBREVIATIONS





Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Case description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Delimitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.5 Project outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7
2.1 Social sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Procurement processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.2.1 Supplier selection processes and the influence of social
sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

2.2.2 Social sustainability in public procurement . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 Customer communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.3.1 Value communication in customer value proposition . . . . . . 12
2.3.2 Validity in communicating social sustainability . . . . . . . . . 14

2.4 Methodologies for measuring social sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.4.1 Social impact assessment and social return on investment . . . 16
2.4.2 Quantitative methodologies for measuring social sustainability 17

2.5 Application of the theoretical framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3 METHODOLOGY 19
3.1 Motivation of the choice of methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.2 Semi-structured interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.2.1 Interview preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2.2 Interview selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2.3 Interview procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.3 Method for analysing qualitative data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.3.1 Applied grounded theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3.4 Research quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.4.1 Trustworthiness and authenticity of the study . . . . . . . . . 27
3.4.2 Ethics of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4 FINDINGS FROM THE PUBLIC SECTOR 30
4.1 Social sustainability as a hypernym . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.2 Ine�ective communication and limited proactivity . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.3 Shaping the requirements of public customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4 Preferred approaches for communicating social sustainability . . . . . 39

4.4.1 Expedient media for social sustainability communication . . . 41
4.4.2 Soft factors to improve the social sustainability communication 42



5 FINDINGS FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR 45
5.1 Value chain specific definitions of social sustainability . . . . . . . . . 46
5.2 Does Essity’s message reach the customers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.3 Minimum requirements and di�erentiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.4 Key aspects for communicating social sustainability . . . . . . . . . . 51

5.4.1 The importance of soft factors within the social sustainability
communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

5.4.2 Connecting the communication through a common language . 56

6 DISCUSSION 58
6.1 Essity’s current social sustainability communication method . . . . . 58

6.1.1 Essity’s main challenges related to communication of social
sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

6.1.2 Lacking initiative in the communication . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.1.3 Misconceived communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

6.2 Customer’s requirements regarding social sustainability . . . . . . . . 61
6.2.1 Influencing the requirements regarding social sustainability . . 61
6.2.2 Price-reductions for social sustainability achievements . . . . . 62
6.2.3 Social sustainability as a long-term competitive edge . . . . . 62

6.3 Central aspects when designing social sustainability communication . 63
6.3.1 Mitigating conceptual confusion through a common foundation 63
6.3.2 Tailoring the communication towards customer’s business . . . 65
6.3.3 Facilitate understanding with tangible examples . . . . . . . . 66
6.3.4 Training to increase competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.3.5 Credibility as an essential factor within communication . . . . 68

6.4 The 6Ts of Social Sustainability Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

7 CONCLUSION 73
7.1 Recommendations for Essity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
7.2 Managerial implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
7.3 Academic implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
7.4 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

REFERENCES i

APPENDICES viii



1 INTRODUCTION
As many have written before, the World Commission on Environment and
Development define sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
(Brundtland, 1987). This is a broad definition of a rather abstract theme that can
be interpreted in many ways (Portney, 2015). When it comes to businesses
addressing the concept of sustainability, the triple bottom line approach, which can
be seen in Figure 1 (created by the authors based on Elkington’s (2004) definition of
the triple bottom line), is often applied (Elkington, 2004). Elkington (2004)
describes the triple bottom line as a model including not only economic value but
also environmental and social. They mean that all of the elements need to co-exist
in order to increase a company’s sustainability performance. One cannot only focus
in one of the areas, as they all need to be developed (Khokhar, Iqbal, Hou, Abbas &
Fatima, 2020). Garbie (2016) states that this is a fairly new mindset of
sustainability and that earlier conceptualisations often focused in one or two of the
areas (mostly environment and economics) and did not consider that all the
elements need to be fulfilled.

Figure 1: The triple bottom line. Adapted from “Enter the triple bottom line, by
Elkington, 2004, in Henriques & Richardson. (Eds), The Triple Bottom Line: Does
it All Add Up? Assessing the Sustainability of Business and CSR”, Earthscan, 1-16.

Among the three elements, social sustainability has received the least attention, as
most companies and researchers focus essentially on the economic and
environmental aspects (Golicic, Lenk & Hazen, 2020). The low attention has also
generated less communication among companies about the social dimension than

1



the other two (Zimara, & Eidam, 2015). This is supported by von Geibler, Liedtke,
Wallbaum & Schaller (2006) who state that “in contrast to environmental
management accounting, current research in management accounting for social
issues is relatively limited”. This phenomenon can be explained as a lack of
knowledge from companies’ perspective about the benefits of practicing social
sustainability (Ehrgott, Reimann, Kaufmann & Carter, 2010). The social dimension
thus remains on a novel stage and needs to be further explored (Lindgreen, Antioco,
Harness & Van der Sloot, 2008).

Even though social sustainability has received less attention than economic and
environmental sustainability, the awareness of social sustainability and its
importance is generally increasing (McDonagh & Prothero, 2014). Management
have realised over the last decade that social sustainability can support financial
performance (Rotondo, Corsi & Giovanelli, 2019). Even stakeholders such as
customers and shareholders are paying more attention to it, which leads to higher
pressure on companies (Berns, Townend, Khayat, Balagopal, Reeves, Hopkins &
Kruschwitz, 2009). Goworek (2011) describes the increase in social sustainability
recognition as a consequence of the escalated demand for ethically produced
products.

When Taliento, Favino & Netti (2019) describe the modern company, they illustrate
social sustainability as an important factor for being competitive on the market and
attractive to stakeholders. Moreover, researchers believe that social sustainability
entails a strong image and brand reputation for the company (Berns et al., 2009).
Ehrgott et al. (2010) further describe how it can a�ect customer relationships, and
Lindgreen et al. (2008) indicate that social sustainability can di�erentiate a
company’s product and influence the customer’s purchase decision. The same
perception is shared from the marketing perspective according to McDonagh &
Prothero (2014), who explain the important role of social sustainability when
creating value for the customers. Lindgreen et al. (2008) concur and portray how
vital it is to make social sustainability performance understandable for the
customer. Their key questions within marketing social sustainability are; “Which
stakeholder should be targeted? When during the purchasing process should
marketing communication occur? How should it be communicated?”. They mean
that communication methods should be specific to each customer section and be
influenced by the proximity of the purchase (Lindgreen et al., 2008). Leone (2019)
argues that direct communication is, for example, more appropriate than customers
having to dig out the information themselves.

Thus, the aim of communicating social sustainability is to a�ect the customer
positively (Gench, 2017). If social sustainability performance is not communicated
well externally, the company may face financial losses as they will not benefit from

2



their work around social sustainability (Gench, 2017). Therefore, the
communication method chosen must not only be easy to understand but also
credible, otherwise it may create a lack of trust from the customers perspective
(Leone, 2019).

Despite the awareness, the previous low attention has created an uncertainty around
social sustainability and the world now urges for an industrial framework in order to
accurately measure the achievements within social sustainability (Khokhar et al.,
2020). There exist very limited standardisations about how to report or
communicate social sustainability, compared to the environmental and economic
parts (Leone, 2018). Lindgreen et al. (2008) state that stakeholders sometimes
create their personal opinions about social sustainability, which could lead to a
massive confusion. Social sustainability therefore needs a clearer clarification and a
distinct approach in measuring and communicating (Leone, 2019). Multiple
attempts have been made by researchers to establish standardised performance
measurements for social sustainability, but consensus has not been reached
regarding what to measure, why or for whom to measure and how to measure these
issues (Maas, 2008). According to Maas (2008), the various existing measurement
methods di�er across a set of characteristics, e.g. perspective (individual, company
or society), approach (process, impact or monetisation), and purpose (screening,
monitoring, reporting or evaluating). Examples of such measurements include social
return on investment (SROI) and social impact assessment (SIA) (Nicholls, 2017).

1.1 Case description
This master’s thesis will examine the business-to-business (B2B) communication
regarding social sustainability of a Swedish health and hygiene solutions company
called Essity, and investigate how it can be improved in order to enhance their
competitiveness. The subject originated from several interactions together with S.
Henricson (Manager for Sustainable Sourcing at Essity), who later became
supervisor of the project from Essity’s side. S. Henricson (Personal communication,
April 2020) described in the beginning how customers can find the communication
regarding social sustainability complicated and confusing. This as a result of the
absence of profound standardisations for how to measure and communicate social
sustainability, compared to environmental sustainability performances which
companies are becoming more and more proficient at communicating and reporting
in a trustworthy manner. He portrayed the social dimension as abstract and broad,
which makes it more challenging for employees internally at Essity to present the
subject externally to customers. Connecting Henricson’s point of view to the
identified opinions in the introduction, Golicic et al. (2020) concur that the social
dimension of sustainability has received less attention, than environmental aspects.
Additionally, Leone (2019) writes that there is an urge for a clearer clarification of

3



social sustainability and a distinct approach for communicating social sustainability,
in order to mitigate the confusion and uncertainty. S. Henricson, shared this
standpoint and this is the reason why Essity engaged for support in trying to
determine a best practice in how to communicate social sustainability in an ideal
way (Personal communication, April 2020).

Essity are divided into 4 di�erent business units (BUs), Professional hygiene (PH),
Health and Medical Solutions (HMS), Consumer goods (CG) and Latin America
(LA). In this master’s thesis, only the first three will be investigated (PH, HMS and
CG). However, in order to give adequate recommendations, the result, analysis,
discussion and conclusion will not be for each BU, but instead for the sector their
customers, which Essity are working towards, are engaged in. The result will
therefore be divided into either public or private, as di�erent rules and legislations
apply within the di�erent sectors (van Weele, 2018). This will lead to a more
comprehensible and relevant recommendation to the stakeholders within Essity.

1.2 Aim
This study aims at enhancing the communication performance regarding social
sustainability within the B2B segment for Essity in order to improve their
competitiveness. Increasing competitiveness through social sustainability is
supported by, for example, Taliento et al. (2019). However, as S. Henricson
(Personal communication, April 2020) described, communication regarding social
sustainability is complex and confusing, and there is a limitation in profound
standardisation for how to measure and communicate it. Therefore, to accomplish
the aim, the study focused on creating a framework for communicating social
sustainability towards organisational customers for Essity. This framework should
work as a gap-closer between the increasing awareness of social sustainability across
the world described by McDonagh & Prothero (2014), the question of how to make
social sustainability understandable for customer which Lindgreen et al. (2008)
explain, and the lack of clarification and distinct approach in how to communicate it
illustrated by Leone (2019).

In order to achieve a recommendation on how Essity should communicate their
social sustainability performance, Essity’s current social sustainability
communication method was investigated. This was done in parallel with an attempt
to identify existing or potential customer requirements, both within the public and
private sector, together with an explanation of how the customers preferred to
receive communication about social sustainability. Lastly, all of these parameters
were analysed to create a proposal on how Essity should communicate their
sustainability achievements externally to organisational customers.

4



1.3 Delimitations
Firstly, the study focused on the social dimension of sustainability because of the
lack of knowledge among researchers and companies about the concept (Golicic,
2020). This indicated a need for further research. Secondly, the study looked at
B2B marketing and excluded the business-to-consumer dimension, which was a
decision made based on Essity’s needs as expressed by S. Henricson (Personal
communication, April 2020). In addition, consumer markets di�er from business
markets in fundamental ways (this is discussed in further detail in the theoretical
framework). The study does however assess both private and public customers
within the B2B segment. Thirdly, the scope of customers analysed was limited
geographically to Sweden. This decision was made based on S. Henricson’s
judgement that there would be a su�ciently large sample of relevant companies to
interview within this area. All interviewees were from Swedish organisations except
one, which was a Sales Manager within Essity who worked closely with customers in
the Norwegian public sector.

1.4 Research questions
The following research question was the main focus of this study:

RQ1: How should Essity communicate their social sustainability performance
towards organisational customers in order to increase competitiveness?

In order to answer the main question, the following three sub-questions were also
posed:

RQ1a: How do Essity currently communicate social sustainability towards
organisational customers and what are their challenges?

RQ1b: What are organisational customers’ perceptions about social sustainability
as a requirement within procurement?

RQ1c: How do organisational customers prefer to receive communication about
social sustainability?

1.5 Project outline
The purpose of this project was to use existing theory and data from qualitative
interviews in order to answer the research questions and deliver a recommendation to
Essity regarding how they should communicate their social sustainability performance
towards organisational customers to increase competitiveness. The first step of the
project was to set up a theoretical background and to define the problem at hand

5



(see Section 1-2). Then, qualitative interviews were conducted to collect data, and
while doing these key findings were identified to create grounded theory (see Section
3-5). Note that findings from the public sector and the private sector were initially
separated. Then all the findings and the theoretical framework were synthesised
through a discussion. And finally, this was used to answer the research questions
and formulate suggestions for Essity as well as general implications for industry and
academia. Figure 2 below illustrates this process.

Figure 2: A conceptual framework for the outline of this project.

The outline of the report synchronises quite well with the project outline and goes
as follows. The reader has already been given a context of the issue of
communicating social value as a competitive advantage, and of the aim of this
study. Next will be the theoretical framework where related topics to the subject
will be introduced. The theoretical framework is followed by a description of the
study’s methodology, which motivates the choice of methods and explains the
interview process as well as the method for analysing the collected data. Then the
findings from the public sector will be presented followed by the findings for the
private sector. After the findings, a profound discussion will take place to combine
the most essential issues from the findings together with the theoretical framework.
Last, there will be a conclusion, which first aims at answering the sub-research
questions, and then a directed recommendation for Essity, connecting to the main
research question. Managerial/academic implications, limitations and future
research will also be part of this section. References and appendices are presented at
the end of the report.

6



2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A theoretical framework consisting of four topics is presented in this section. The
topics are; social sustainability, procurement processes, customer communication, and
methodologies for measuring social sustainability. Section 2.1 ‘Social sustainability’
addresses the issue of defining the concept of social sustainability. Defining social
sustainability is challenging for multiple reasons, e.g. because new social issues arise
frequently (Sudusinghe & Seuring, 2020). Section 2.2 ‘Procurement process’ gives
a general discussion about industrial purchasing, and then focuses on the influence
of social sustainability in supplier selection and public procurement. Section 2.3
‘Customer communication’ focuses on the importance of communication in customer
relationships, and especially narrows down on the issues of communicating value
propositions and having validity when communicating about social sustainability.
Section 2.4 ‘Methodologies for measuring social sustainability’ gives a current state
overview of the research around ways to quantify and measure social sustainability.

2.1 Social sustainability
Many researchers have tried to define the concept of social sustainability, and the
field faces obstacles such as vagueness and debates over which values to prioritise
(Missimer, Robért & Broman, 2017). Sudusinghe & Seuring (2020) argue that it is
challenging to understand the social dimension within sustainability as new social
issues arise frequently. Colantonio, Dixon, Ganser, Carpenter & Ngombe (2009) even
state:

“The concept of social sustainability has been under-theorised or often oversimplified
in existing theoretical constructs [. . . ]. Furthermore, no consensus seems to exist on

what criteria and perspectives should be adopted in defining social sustainability.
Each author or policy maker derives their own definition according to

discipline-specific criteria or study perspective, making a generalised definition
di�cult to achieve.”

However, a vague and plural definition could possibly be appropriate and desirable
compared to a singular definition, due to the complexity of the social dimension, as
it would be harder to create a general definition (Missimer et al., 2017). Missimer
et al. (2017) argue that the definition of social sustainability di�ers from di�erent
contexts and that the common definition only needs to be general enough. They
explain how an attempt to describe social sustainability will still contribute to some
learning about the subject. This vision is further described by Lehtonen (2004):

“Di�erent geographical and temporal scales as well as situational contexts require
their own frameworks, which do not necessarily provide a coherent picture, but a

mosaic of partly contradicting views of reality.”

7



Some interpret the dimension of social sustainability as health and safety, labor rights,
equality and welfare for a company’s employees (Sudusinghe & Seuring, 2020). Others
describe it as human rights, working conditions, forced or child labor and social
commitment such as investing in education for local communities. It could even be
illustrated as product responsibility associated with social wellbeing (Golicic et al.,
2020). Lindgreen et al. (2008) have attempted to summarise it as meeting customer
requirements without harming society or the wellbeing of a company’s personnel, but
they also write that these elements are intangible and not so comprehensible. All of
the di�erent descriptions of social sustainability are gathered in Figure 3. Missimer
et al. (2017) further explain how di�erent elements within social sustainability can
more easily be understood and enrolled if they are trusted.

Figure 3: Di�erent components of social sustainability described in the literature.

There are, as explained, some concerns when it comes to social sustainability, due to
its complexity (Garbie, 2016). This leads to the fact that social sustainability is not
often managed well within a company with the priority it requires (Rotondo et al.,
2019). The complexity leads to problems within the dimensions of social
sustainability which are illustrated in Figure 3 being ill-structured (Garbie, 2016).
Moreover, Golicic et al. (2020) mean that the lack of definition within the subject
forces an inconsistency in regulations, which makes it hard to determine the

8



performance both internally but especially externally. Therefore, not only will it be
hard to report social sustainability achievements but also to address social issues
within the supply chain, whether it is internally or from a direct or sub-supplier. So,
when companies that do not have sustainability as a main focus area try to engage
in sustainability, they merely do it by administering their social issues through their
legal department (Rotondo et al., 2019). Rotondo et al. (2019) explain this
phenomenon as a knowledge gap between the relationship of social sustainability
and financial performance. Sudusinghe & Seuring. (2020) give an example of this
when explaining that social issues could lead to reputation devastation if
administered the wrong way, which could ultimately lead to major financial losses.
Rotondo et al. (2019) imply that social sustainability should instead be treated
proactively which will lead to positive value for all the stakeholders. Khokhar et al.
(2020) take it further and specify that it will lead to a great well-being for the
company’s employees and a leading role among competitors.

The value social sustainability promotes comes in numerous forms, and Garbie
(2016) demonstrates that value creation should be the topic to discuss around social
sustainability. Rotondo et al. (2019) identify some of them as long term financial
improvement, increased resilience against external shocks, enhancement of working
conditions, employee loyalty and general success as a result from the
competitiveness it leads to. Khokhar et al. (2020) fully agree, and state that social
sustainability will lead to improved company image and reputation. However, the
social sustainability success is not automatic (Rotondo et al., 2019), which Garbie
(2016) describes as the important work of marketing and communication it requires
in order to fully take advantage of the proactive management.

2.2 Procurement processes
van Weele (2018) noticed key di�erences between industrial and consumer markets
in relation to purchasing. Organisational buying behavior di�ers from consumer
buying behavior in multiple aspects, e.g. buying objective, buying motive and
decision-making. The buying objective in industrial markets is to enable
production, while it is to satisfy personal needs in consumer markets, and the
buying motive is mainly rational in industrial markets and more emotional in
consumer markets. Decision-making involves many persons and much discussion in
industrial markets while in consumer markets this is often impulsive without
consulting others. The decision-making is more complex in industrial markets and
therefore the price-elasticity is often lower. Another important characteristic of B2B
markets is the buyer power which is strong since there are oftentimes only a few
customers (buyers) available for a supplier to sell to. In addition, suppliers often sell
on derived demand since they are seldom direct suppliers to the end-user and thus
developments in B2B markets are often related to changes in the end-user markets

9



(van Weele, 2018). The idea that industrial and consumer markets are
fundamentally di�erent was established decades ago (Cassel, Grove, Hankins,
Leopold & Lovell, 1954). It was challenged by Fern and Brown (1984), stating that
there no empirical support existed for the idea and that it hindered development of
e�ective marketing strategies since it was uncertain if any fundamental di�erences
were present at all. The debate has however not resulted in much concrete progress
other than some consensus around the idea that maybe the distinction between
consumer and industrial marketing should not be used uncritically since other
factors play a part as well (Cova & Salle, 2008).

B2B markets often constitute complex industrial networks (van Weele, 2018).
Industrial marketing strategies are focused on extending, investing in, and
continuously maintaining these networks and this requires active relationship
management (van Weele, 2018). Understanding the customer’s purchasing process is
highly beneficial for business market managers since it allows them to create
marketing strategies, sales presentations, and promotional e�orts to inform and
influence purchasing decisions (Anderson, Narus & Narayandas, 2009). Customers
define their own requirements, but at the same time suppliers tend to know more
details about their (the suppliers’) o�erings (e.g. technological properties) and can
therefore address needs that the customers do not anticipate through proactive
business market management (Anderson et al., 2009). This reflects how customers’
“need uncertainty” can be exploited and turned into an advantage for suppliers
(Anderson et al., 2009). Figure 4 illustrates how both parties in an industrial
transaction are accountable for their respective organisations, which both have
goals, resources, constraints, problem-solving activities, and people to consider (van
Weele, 2018).

Figure 4: Purchasing management requires management of supplier relationships
within organizational networks. Reprinted from Purchasing and supply chain
management, by van Weele, 2018, Cengage.

10



2.2.1 Supplier selection processes and the influence of social
sustainability

Purchasing managers generally di�erentiate between functional and technical
specifications, where a functional specification describes the functionality the
product needs to provide for the user, while a technical specification describes the
technical properties and characteristics of the product, and the activities the
supplier should perform, according to van Weele (2018). The price o�ered by a
supplier to a prospective buyer is an important aspect of the suppliers’ bids but
purchasing departments tend to take other factors into account as well, such as
technical, logistic, quality, financial and legal aspects. Such thorough evaluations of
potential suppliers reflect a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective and strive to
assess the total cost throughout the product life cycle (van Weele, 2018). Suppliers’
social sustainability performance is increasingly considered by buying organisations
since their ‘output sustainability’, which is becoming a more prominent source to
competitiveness, directly depends on the sustainability of their whole supply chain
(Bai, Kusi-Sarpong, Badri Ahmadi, & Sarkis, 2019). Davis-Sramek, Robinson,
Darby, & Thomas (2020) found that while both environmental and social
sustainability played di�erential roles in long-term and short-term selection of
carriers (i.e. suppliers of transportation services), environmental sustainability was
a more prominent factor for long-term carrier selection and social sustainability
criteria had more influence on short-term selection decisions. Although further
research is needed to explain the reason behind these findings, the time horizon of a
relationship seems to be a ‘relevant boundary condition’ (Davis-Sramek et al., 2020).

2.2.2 Social sustainability in public procurement

van Weele (2018) highlighted some central characteristics of public procurement
within the European Union (EU). Public procurement policy is characterised by
legality and public accountability. Four major principles underlie the EU’s
procurement directives and these are: non-discrimination (any supplier within the
EU should have access to the market of government contracts), equality (every
competing supplier should be treated similarly and be provided with the same
information at the same time), transparency (the institution communicates what
procedure for procurement will be used, what requirements will be stated and how
the contract will be awarded) and proportionality (the requirements need to be
reasonable, meaning that they should be in balance with the scope, features and
volume of the contract). Public authorities may be sued for not being compliant
with the EU public procurement directives and therefore the legitimacy of
procurement decisions often overrides their e�cacy. Thus, contracting authorities
are more procedure-driven than result- or performance-driven. They are not
subjected to the rules of free markets since they are funded by tax income rather
than revenue from customers and therefore commercial incentives have much less

11



influence on them. Public procurement is still underdeveloped organisationally and
theoretically in many countries. It is complex, inflexible, does not stimulate supply
chain collaboration and innovation, and there is extensive administration related to
requirements (van Weele, 2018). From an international perspective on the
construction industry there is a varying prevalence of requirements regarding social
sustainability in public procurement (Montalbán-Domingo, Garcia-Segura, Sanz, &
Pellicer, 2018). Social indicators are included most in countries such as the United
States of America (US), United Kingdom, and Australia but the lack of objective
methods to measure social sustainability is a fact in every country
(Montalbán-Domingo et al., 2018).

2.3 Customer communication
When communicating with customers it is essential to know what the company
wants to express in their message, otherwise the message will not be concrete and
therefore harder to understand from the customers’ perspective (Connors,
Anderson-MacDonald & Thomson, 2017). In order to do so, Payne, Frow, Steinho�,
& Eggert (2020) state that the company needs to know what the customers’ values
are and how these values can be communicated in a trustworthy way. So,
communicating the company’s message with the right approach could help build
trust between them and the customer (Parkhe, 1998). It is also important to
understand that the communication needs to be adjusted to di�erent channels,
Gundling (1999) gives an example that a company must be cautious when adopting
new digital communication technologies. He further explains how digital
presentations and meetings, compared to face-to-face, have a greater need for
context building, such as sending background material beforehand or stating
communication agreements. Therefore, the choice of channel and the mediational
choice within that channel including the context, plays a crucial role for how the
communication is received by the customers (Sidhu & Volberda, 2011).

2.3.1 Value communication in customer value proposition

Customer value propositions (CVPs) are considered the most important strategic tool
for suppliers to articulate the value they create for and with their customers and other
stakeholders (Payne, Frow & Eggert, 2017). A distinction was made by two McKinsey
consultants in 1988 between the ‘traditional product-oriented system’ and the ‘value
delivery system’, where the former begins with creating the product or service to then
build arguments for purchase around that, and the latter on the other hand starts
by defining the intended value and instead builds the product or service upon that
(Payne et al., 2020). Payne et al. (2020) built on this view and proposed a novel
cyclic five-phase process framework for development of value propositions, see Figure
5. ‘Value communication’ is a core component of this framework, but the authors
also emphasise the importance of communicating throughout the whole cycle. They

12



argue that value communication was viewed as important in the original theoretical
formulation of the value proposition, but that it appears to have been neglected in
most academic literature over time (Payne et al., 2020).

Figure 5: The VP implementation cycle. Adapted from “Toward a comprehensive
framework of value proposition development: From strategy to implementation”, by
Payne et al., 2020, Industrial Marketing Management, 87, 244-255.

Stressing that communication does not only entail telling the customer about an
experience, and that the important part of value communication is to get the
customer to believe that the experience really will be provided, Payne et al. (2020)
state that ‘strong signals’ should be sent to help customers fully understand the
value proposition. Value quantification precedes value communication in the cycle,
highlighting the importance of having quantifiable measurements to include in the
communication (Payne et al., 2020). Vesal, Siahtiri, & O’Cass (2020) suggest that
managers of manufacturing firms can increase brand strength by signalling
customers about their e�orts and successes with regards to (environmental)
sustainability. This can be done through; “environmental sustainability performance
reports, pro-environment campaigns, B2B advertising, the salesforce, and product
labels with messages regarding commitment to environmental sustainability” (Vesal
et al., 2020). They also add that signals become more apparent to business

13



customers through close relationships (Vesal et al., 2020).

2.3.2 Validity in communicating social sustainability

Zakaria & Musta�a (2014) state that the receiver’s interpretation of the
communication is a�ected substantially by the sender’s credibility. This aligns with
Belonax Jr, Newell & Plank (2007) description of how the communicator’s perceived
credibility is influenced by their trustworthiness and expertise, with expertise
explained as knowledge and competence relevant to the information exchanged
between the buyer and seller. Zakaria & Musta�a (2014) additionally express that
the degree of credibility and expertise perceived by the receiver or buyer/consumer
towards the communicator, will impact their attitude and likability about the
advertised brand.

When communicating social sustainability, there could often be a scepticism from
stakeholders’ perspective regarding the credibility of the information (Arvidsson,
2010). Some stakeholders even believe that the initiative of communicating social
sustainability could be seen as window dressing, meaning that the company
distracts stakeholders from larger problems or negative news with positive aspects of
their achievements (Connors et al., 2017). Connors et al. (2017) further explain
that stakeholders who are being sceptical generally pay less attention to the
information given as they may see the act as window dressing. A reason for losing
validity, according to Arvidsson (2010), could be if a company communicates very
or even too high social sustainability performances. She indicates that companies
showing “good enough” achievements are more credible, as they seemingly would
not lie about that. So, communicating social sustainability must be done trustfully
in order to get stakeholders’ full attention (Hu, Dou & Wang, 2019).

To overcome the validation problem, companies need to make it easier for
stakeholders to understand and compare di�erent companies’ social sustainability
achievements (Arvidsson, 2010). Taylor, Vithayathil & Yim (2018) state that it is
the lack of clarity within companies’ communication about social sustainability
which lowers its impetus. Therefore, the message needs to be concrete according to
Connors et al. (2017), who explain that concrete messages that are understandable
for the customers can not only mitigate the negative aspects but also increase
customers’ impressions of the company. In order to make it more concrete,
Arvidsson (2010) describes that standards and objective evaluations need to be
established. This will lead to customers being able to recognise the company’s
achievements and compare them to those of other organisations within the subject
(Arvidsson, 2010). Taylor et al. (2018) also recommend that the social
sustainability performance should be connected to the company’s overall strategy,
making it easier to understand internally in order for the employees to communicate

14



the performance externally.

Moreover, when communicating and marketing social sustainability, a company
should be aware of the increase in public exposure. Scrutiny will rise, making it
harder for companies to disguise bad news (Hu et al., 2019). Hu et al. (2019)
indicate that a company approaching the subject in a transparent way, shows that
they have nothing to hide, which could strengthen their credibility in the long run.

If companies tell the truth, they will often be seen as reliable which will lead to
them overcoming the aspect of window dressing and instead reap the benefits of
social sustainability achievements (Connors et al., 2017). Hu et al. (2019) take it
even further and explain that a company who are marketing social sustainability are
less likely to commit to problems which can lead to scandals within the area,
benefiting the company in the long-term.

2.4 Methodologies for measuring social sustainability
Objective methods to measure social sustainability are lacking globally
(Montalbán-Domingo et al., 2018). Developing key performance indicators (KPIs)
for social sustainability is complicated e.g. due to di�erences between industries,
urging for development of sector-specific criteria (von Geibler et al., 2006). Lorentz
& Kay (2010) suggest that organisations develop their own indicators for ‘social
bookkeeping’. The procedures in traditional accounting are regulated by legislation
and standards that are externally determined while sustainability accounting is
governed internally in companies, potentially leading to bad information quality and
arbitrary reporting (von Geibler et al., 2006). However, Papoutsi & Sohdi (2020)
concluded that individual companies’ disclosures in their sustainability reports do in
fact reflect their actual sustainability performance.

Stakeholder involvement can help pinpoint relevant areas of assessment (von Geibler
et al., 2006). It can lead to a better understanding of needs and expectations,
improvement of corporate reputation and trust through accountability, better, well
founded decision-making, and findings about organisational impact and
development of KPIs (von Geibler et al., 2006). Stakeholder involvement is an
increasingly popular method to deal with complex research areas (such as social
sustainability) which incorporates non-academic actors’ views and knowledge in
research (Mielke, Vermassen, Ellenbeck, Fernandez Milan, & Jaeger, 2016). Welp,
De La Vega-Leinert, Stoll-Klugeemann, & Jaeger (2006) describe stakeholder
involvement in science as the “structured communication processes linking scientists
with societal actors such as representatives of companies, non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), governments and the wider public”, called “science-based
stakeholder dialogues”.

15



2.4.1 Social impact assessment and social return on investment

A number of methods which try to measure social sustainability have been
established over the years (Maas, 2008), but no consensus has been reached. An
organisation called Social Value International (SVI) was founded in 2015 based
upon the principles of “social impact assessment” (SIA) and “social return on
investment” (SROI) (Nicholls, 2017). This represents, according to Nicholls (2017),
a convergence around basic principles for determining social (and environmental)
outcomes and an opportunity to influence public policy. It is however unclear how
this has been received by the wider research community.

SIA is a concept with the purpose of analysing, monitoring and managing the social
consequences of development (Maas, 2008). SIA should be understood as a field of
research and practice, or a paradigm consisting of knowledge, techniques, and values
which together serve as a methodology to assess social impact (Vanclay, 2003).
According to Esteves, Franks & Vanclay (2011), there are some ‘social performance
standards’ such as intergovernmental initiatives (e.g. the United Nation’s (UN)
Global Compact, numerous International Labour Organization’s (ILO) conventions
and declarations, Organisation for Economic Co-operations Development’s (OECD)
Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises and UN principles for Responsible
Investment), multi-stakeholder (business actors and civil society) initiatives such as
the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO)-standards, and some
industry-specific and company-specific codes, which are in line with the SIA values.

SROI is another concept, established in 1996, which is widely used to estimate the
impact investments have on public benefit (Bosco, Schneider & Broome, 2019). It
has similarities with financial accounting in its approach, mainly that both build
upon principles with the purpose of providing “good enough information for those
receiving the social returns to make decisions” and to develop standardisation over
time (Nicholls, 2017). In Nicholls’s (2017) view, SROI spans beyond financial figures
and should be perceived as a story about change that includes case studies
accompanied with qualitative, quantitative and financial data, on which decisions
should be based. Moreover, ‘relevant stakeholders’ need to be included in the
development of performance indicators since it is their needs that the SROI concept
strives to support fulfilment of (Nicholls, 2017). The vision of Social Value
International (SVI) is, according to Nicholls (2017), as follows:

“A world where decision making, ways of working and resource allocation are based
on the principles of accounting for value leading to increased equality and well-being

and reduced environmental degradation.”

The organisation’s work builds upon seven principles; (1) involve stakeholders; (2)
understand change; (3) do not over claim; (4) only include what is material; (5)
value what matters; (6) be transparent; (7) verify the result. The reason for using

16



principles to guide the development of social impact measurement practices is that
financial accounting standards were originally born that way (Nicholls, 2017).

2.4.2 Quantitative methodologies for measuring social sustainability

According to Lee & Jung (2019), quantitatively measurable indicators for social
sustainability would facilitate socially sustainable decision-making. Many attempts
have been made to quantify social impact but quantitative social indicators and
methods for social impact assessment are not as well-developed as their
environmental counterparts (Messman, Zender, Thorenz & Tuma, 2020). A
drawback with SROI for example is that it builds upon quantification of variables
that are not directly measurable, such as an organisation’s reputation, the
confidence of sta� or the autonomy of frail older people and that it relies heavily on
transparency of the estimates used and the arguments these are motivated with
(Bosco et al., 2019). Some practice standards have been developed for SROI, but
the concept still needs to be ‘carefully contextualised’ and its results need to be
derived from evidence and argument, with rigor (Bosco et al., 2019). Messman et al.
(2020) conclude that the only social impact indicator that is used consistently in
research is ‘number of jobs created’, but that also has its limitations as a
measurement since the total social impact resulting from a number of new jobs is
not necessarily the same in di�erent settings (Messman et al., 2020).

Khosravi & Izbirak (2019) proposed a stochastic model based on exponential
indicators to assess the social sustainability of a hospital in Tehran, Iran. The
model used factors indicating ‘capacity’ and ‘challenges’ in the system and then
gave outputs in numeric values which represented the probability that the system
would be socially sustainable (sustainability is defined by Khosravi & Izbirak (2019)
as system capacity being larger than the burden of challenges over time). The
model included the perspectives of multiple stakeholders (stakeholder involvement)
and allowed areas of priority identified by all stakeholders to be focused (Khosravi
& Izbirak, 2019). Digging deeper into the workings of quantitative methodologies
for measuring social sustainability goes beyond the scope of this study, especially
since they are still at an experimental stage and have not yet been proven to be
useful in practice.

2.5 Application of the theoretical framework
In order to provide profound answers to the research questions, a deepened
knowledge had to be established. This was achieved through the theoretical
framework, which described the most important topics within the study. Social
sustainability is the overall subject and was presented in the beginning of the
theoretical framework. As Rotondo et al. (2019) described, if social sustainability is
handled well, a company can increase its competitiveness through numerous forms.

17



Khokhar et al. (2020) mentioned that it can increase both company image and its
reputation. The context where social sustainability is managed in this report is
within procurement processes, which is the second topic. Both private and public
procurement processes are explained there, as the two will be taken into the
discussion later in the report. In order to take advantage of the proactive
management, customer communication is of essence (Garbie, 2016). That is why
communication is brought up in Section 2.3, increasing the knowledge of how social
sustainability could be communicated according to the literature. Last within the
theoretical framework is a description of some of the existing methodologies for
measuring social sustainability. However, no consensus has been made among these.
The connection between the topics is illustrated in Figure 6. All of the topics will
support the rest of the collected data, and end in comprehensive answers to the
research questions. Along with the theoretical framework and the report, a mindset
similar to Missimer et al’s. (2017) have been adopted as all attempts to discuss
social sustainability will contribute to learnings about the subject.

Figure 6: The connection between the di�erent topics and the research questions.

18



3 METHODOLOGY
The study was conducted with a qualitative method based on action research
(sometimes called practice-based research), which is a form of on-the-job research
(McNi�, 2013). The function of action-based research is to work practically with an
issue and at the same time analyse it through critical self-reflection (McNi�, 2013).
In this study the action research was divided into four stages with two activities in
each stage; case description and research questions, interviews with sales
professionals at Essity and interviews with organisations that were current or
potential customers to Essity, continual analysis and grounded theory, and finally
conclusions and recommendation to Essity. In addition to this, ethical aspects of the
study were assessed. The research design is summarised in a process model in
Figure 7 below.

Figure 7: The action research applied to this study.

Several unstructured interviews with S. Henricson laid the foundation for the research
by defining its issue and purpose. From these interviews, the problem at hand could
be understood in its right context, and relevant research questions could then be
posed. A draft of the theoretical framework was also created to support the relevance
of the research questions. Then, data was mainly collected through semi-structured
interviews and analysed through grounded theory, which finally led to answers to the
research questions, i.e. conclusions. The concepts of semi-structured interviews and
grounded theory are elaborated in more detail in Sections 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4.

19



3.1 Motivation of the choice of methodology
The choice of method should be tailored to the study at hand (Silverman, 2013), or
even to each research question (Larsson, 2011). Action research o�ered a pragmatic
approach to the problem at hand since the researchers had an intern-like role at
Essity, and thus they conducted the study while working on a ‘real’ issue at the
company (McNi�, 2013). As for the di�erent parts of the study, opting for data of
descriptive nature seemed more realistic compared to strictly quantitative data, since
the field of social sustainability is still quite early in its development. And a qualitative
method is well-suited when looking for descriptive data to understand the reality of
an issue (Taylor, Bogdan, & DeVault, 2016). The combination of collecting data with
semi-structured interviews and analysing the data with grounded theory allowed for
constant challenging of preconceptions and hypotheses since the theoretical framework
was built continually along the data collection process. This was beneficial due to
the di�culty in foreseeing the outcome of the research questions of this study, and
thus the need to keep an open mind during the analytic process. To succeed with a
qualitative study, the research questions need to be of high quality, characterised by
clarity, and they should connect to the theoretical framework which the study is based
on in order to guide the researcher throughout the study (Bryman & Bell, 2011). This
was taken into account when designing the research questions for this study to not
get side-tracked. Lastly, to motivate the unstructured interview with S. Henricson, an
advantage with unstructured interviews is that they allow the interviewee to associate
freely and provide the information they see fit from their perspective based on one
or a few open-ended questions (Walle, 2014). This was appropriate in the beginning
of the study when the researchers’ knowledge in the particular context of this study
was limited.

3.2 Semi-structured interviews
Data was gathered from six semi-structured qualitative interviews with sales
professionals from the business units CG, PH, and HMS within Essity, as well as a
total of 18 interviews with 13 di�erent existing or potential customers to Essity.
Furthermore, the sales professionals and the customers were divided by market
sector (public or private) since part of the aim was to formulate one
recommendation for each of those. Essity’s current way of communicating their
social sustainability performance towards their customers was mapped, uniquely for
each sector, through the interviews with professionals within Essity’s sales
organisations. The professionals’ thoughts about customer requirements for social
sustainability were also collected to use as a point of comparison with the findings
from the customer interviews. The purpose of the customer interviews was to collect
information about customer requirements for social sustainability, as well as
customer preferences for communication of social sustainability performance.
Customers in the public sector were distinguished from customers in the private

20



sector.

3.2.1 Interview preparation

Two di�erent interview guides were used. One interview guide was created for
interviews with representatives from Essity, called “Type 1”, and another one was
created for interviews with representatives from customer organisations, called
“Type 2”. A framework for interview preparation in qualitative business research
proposed by Walle (2014), was followed when creating the interview guides (the
complete guides are presented in Appendix A). The general framework from Walle
(2014) consists of four activities, or issues, that are treated in the following
chronological order; ‘establish goals’, ‘research or background’, ‘prepare questions’,
and ‘strategic order’. See Table 1 below.

Table 1: Preparing for an interview. Reprinted from Qualitative Research in
Business: A Practical Overview, by Walle, 2014, Cambridge Scholars Publisher.

Firstly, the purpose of the research and the type of information needed were laid
out, as well as why they were needed. The content in this part di�ered between the
Type 1 and 2 interviews. Type 1 focused on getting information about how Essity
currently communicates about social sustainability, about customer demands from
the perspectives of sales professionals within Essity and to gather leads to customers
which would be relevant to interview or even gather direct contact information to
customers. Type 2 focused on getting first-hand information about customer
requirements regarding social sustainability, about preferences regarding
communication methods, and to learn if the interviewees knew about any other
suppliers that communicated social sustainability in an excellent way, which could
then build onto the overall analysis of Essity’s practices. Secondly, secondary
research was conducted to ensure that su�cient background knowledge was attained
to ask adequate and productive questions and also to have the ability to

21



spontaneously follow-up. This secondary research basically amounted in creating a
draft for the theoretical framework, to familiarise with the area. Thirdly, the
interview questions were formulated with both the substantive information sought
and the format to be used in mind. Before initiating the interview phase, the
questions were sent to the project supervisor at Chalmers University of Technology
P. van Loon as well as S. Henricson at Essity for feedback, whereupon some of the
interview questions were altered and improved. Fourthly and lastly, the formulated
interview questions were put in a strategic order, putting the most important
questions early and potentially sensitive questions last, while striving to create a
flow so the questions built upon each other synergistically (Walle, 2014). The
interview guides were structured such that some formalities were briefly discussed in
the beginning, followed by questions addressing the core concepts of the study, and
the questions that were deemed as having the highest potential to be sensitive to
the interviewee were put last. A summary of the actions taken when preparing the
guides for the Type 1 and 2 interviews is presented in Table 2 below.

Table 2: Preparing for an interview (Walle, 2014), applied.

3.2.2 Interview selection

The Essity representatives that were interviewed in Type 1 interviews were selected
based on contacts given by S. Henricson. The prerequisite was that they needed

22



to be knowledgeable within a relevant market or customer group for the study, and
that the public as well as the private sector would be covered. Then, a method
called ‘snowballing’ was applied which means that each interviewee was asked if they
knew about any additional people who could potentially be relevant as interviewees
(Hennink, Hutter & Bailey, 2011). The interviewees as well as the organisations they
represented were kept anonymous. For Type 1 interviewees, their roles, BUs, and
sectors focused at Essity are presented, while for Type 2 interviewees, their roles
are presented as well as substitute names for each organisation, and which sector
they belong to. Furthermore, brief descriptions of each organisation are presented
in Sections 4 (for public customers) and 5 (for private customers). Table 3 below
presents an overview of the Type 1 interviewees.

Table 3: Overview of Type 1 interviewees.

The customers (current or potential) that were interviewed in Type 2 interviews
were largely selected through snowballing as well (Hennink et al., 2011). Salespeople
at Essity provided connections to some customers and then some customers in turn
provided connections to other customers and so on. But some companies were
approached directly because of their known sustainability leadership. An overview
of the interviewees in the Type 2 category is presented in Table 4. They are all held
anonymous with encrypted names. The organisations from the public sector are
called PUB1-8 and the ones from the private sector are called PRIV1-5. Brief
descriptions of these organisations are presented in Sections 4 and 5.

23



Table 4: Overview of Type 2 interviewees.

3.2.3 Interview procedure

Notes were taken during the interviews in order to e�ectively gather the data that
answered the interview questions. One researcher took notes while the other led the
interview. An alternative approach would be to record and transcribe the

24



interviews. This might have supported the analysis since there would be searchable
text documents where word frequency could be assessed for example. But that
would have taken substantially more time and e�ort and would probably have
yielded a quite small di�erence, if any, in the quality of the analysis since the
research was more exploratory in nature. The interviews were anyhow recorded as
long as permission was granted by the interviewees’ (this was asked in the beginning
of each interview), to make it possible to double check facts if necessary.

3.3 Method for analysing qualitative data
Grounded theory is a common method to analyse qualitative data which focuses on
finding concepts, hypotheses, propositions and theories directly from the retrieved
data, with limited use of other research, existing theoretical frameworks, or
assumptions stated beforehand (Taylor et al., 2016). The purpose of grounded
theory is to seek plausible support for a theory rather than to prove it. There are
multiple strategies to build grounded theory but the one that was used in this study
was the ‘constant comparative method’, which entails developing concepts through
simultaneous coding and analysis of the collected data (Taylor et al., 2016). The
researcher continually identifies and compares common occurrences in the data, and
develops a coherent theory from that (Taylor et al., 2016). New data is compared to
previously collected data looking for similarities and di�erences (Holton, 2018), i.e.
in this study the results from each interview were compared to what had been
observed in the previous ones.

When conducting this study, where the customer requirements for social
sustainability among current or potential industrial customers to Essity were
investigated, the constant comparative method was used to keep track of frequently
occurring themes in the collected data. Hypotheses and concepts were developed
along the project timeline. Figure 8 below is taken from Taylor et al. (2016) and
illustrates their version of the grounded theory approach which guided the analytic
approach in this case.

25



Figure 8: Grounded theory. Reprinted from Introduction to qualitative research
methods: a guidebook and resource, 4:th Edition, by Taylor et al., 2016, Wiley-
Blackwell.

3.3.1 Applied grounded theory

As described by Taylor et al. (2016) and Holton (2018), grounded theory is a
research method for data analysis in qualitative studies where patterns in the results
are explored independently of preconceptions by the researcher. Grounded theory
incorporates thematic analysis of various forms, including open coding and axial
coding (King & Brooks, 2018). Goulding (2002) dives deeper into grounded theory
and explains its properties. In accordance with what the other cited authors have
proposed, Goulding (2002) suggests that grounded theory entails continual analysis,
meaning that the data is analysed while being collected rather than after it has
been collected. This is explained as a process which starts with open coding, where
initial patterns are recognised in the data (for example frequency of similar
statements) and coded into raw descriptive concepts (Goulding, 2002). For example,
it was noted after just a few interviews that requirements in public procurement
processes are rigid and di�cult to influence. Following this step, ‘axial coding’ takes
place, which is about moving to a higher level of abstraction by mapping
relationships between concepts and identifying a theoretical core around which the
rest of the concepts revolve (Goulding 2002).

26



3.4 Research quality
Approximately 16 qualitative interviews are enough to achieve a thematic
saturation, according to Weller, Vickers, Bernard, Blackburn, Borgatti, Gravlee &
Johnson (2018). However, to know exactly how many interviews are needed, the
researchers have to investigate the salience of the information. Salience is the
frequency of items or themes occurring throughout the interviews. In the question
about what social sustainability means for the interviewee (see Appendix A), no
saturation was sought as the question’s purpose was to investigate the broad
spectrum of social sustainability’s components. The remaining questions reached a
theoretical saturation when main ideas about the subject together with relevant
variation were gathered, which led to the researchers being able to formulate a
theory about the coming framework (Weller et al., 2018). The goal of the study was
not to collect all ideas about how to communicate social sustainability, but rather
the important aspects perceived by the organisations as this would cover the
thematic spectrum. This was the case in this study since the same themes were
recurring during the final interviews, indicating thematic saturation. In addition to
the saturation of the interviews, this section will describe how the study has
behaved in relation to the aspects’ trustworthiness, authenticity and ethics, which
are key concepts for a research study.

3.4.1 Trustworthiness and authenticity of the study

When conducting a qualitative study, the approach is often evaluated on the basis
of both its trustworthiness but also its authenticity (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Within
trustworthiness, di�erent factors are discussed with credibility being the first one.
Making sure that the interviewer does not misunderstand the interviewee or vice
versa are key in credibility (Kuada, 2012). This study increased its credibility by
providing information about the report’s aim and the purpose of the interview in
advance to the interviewees, to examine the respondent’s relevance for the interview.
The interviews were also held in the language in which the interviewees were most
comfortable with, with the choices of English, Swedish or Norwegian, in order for
the interviewees to be able to express themselves in the best way possible. The
interviews were further recorded to not mishear or forget any of the information
that the interviewees presented.

Transferability is the next factor in trustworthiness, which means to the extent a
future researcher can compare their studies against this one. To provide a high
transferability, it is important to account details and to illustrate that the findings
are a snapshot of the timeframe which the study is situated in (Kuada, 2012). This
was done by thoroughly explaining the context which in the study was conducted
and the results that were found, which will ease future researchers’ determination if
the findings are trustworthy or not.

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Next is dependability, which is explained as the detailed records that are provided
for each of the study’s phases, including the formulation of the aim, selection of the
interviewees and the interview guides (Kuada, 2012). In order to increase the
dependability, the interview guides were added as appendices, both for internal
interviews at Essity and for external interviews with organisations connected to
Essity (See Appendix A). It was also described in detail how the selection of
interviewees was made, which methods that were applied and the relevance of the
interviewee’s positions. By providing a high dependability, the credibility and
transferability will increase automatically (Kuada, 2012).

Confirmability is the last factor within trustworthiness. Confirmability is explained
as the actions of good faith, meaning that the authors of the report do not have any
hidden intentions which are not described or understood through the report (Kuada,
2012). The confirmability was increased in this report by not adding any personal
opinions from the researchers’ perspective to the result but instead only having an
interest in investigating the research gap founded in the beginning of the study.

The other basis that a qualitative report is evaluated on is authenticity, which
relates to the report’s validity, if it fulfils its aim and measures only what is needed
for the study. Moreover, the two dimensions within authenticity are if the result
matches reality and to what degree the result is generalisable (Bryman & Bell,
2011). The interview questions were formulated in a way which allowed the
interviewees to give answers directed to their suppliers in general as some of the
organisations were potential customers to Essity, ensuring generalisability. Kuada
(2012) adds the importance of including all people of relevance and only people of
relevance in the study to ensure validity. In order to include all the relevant people
for the qualitative study, the snowball approach was used, which stopped when
people that were already interviewed came up as suggestions for further interviews.

3.4.2 Ethics of the study

The main ethical concern is to maximise the result of the study whilst trying to
minimise the risk of any potential harm of the people involved in the research (Cassell,
Cunli�e & Grandy, 2018). Taylor et al. (2016) agree and lift the confidentiality and
privacy of the participants. In order to act accordingly, Bryman & Bell (2011) state
that researchers need to act ethically by informing participants (in this report’s case
the interviewees) about the aim of the study and the terms they are participating in.
An example of this is how the collected data will be handled and which way it will
be presented. Therefore, all of the interviewees were informed via email about the
intention of the interview and the purpose of the study beforehand. Hence, they all
participated voluntarily. The first question of the interview was if we were allowed to

28



record the interview, which gave them an opportunity to decline if they did not want
to be cited on anything they said during the interview. All of the interviewees were
also held anonymous, which goes in line with Taylor et al. (2016) meaning about
privacy. Lastly, to inform about the terms Bryman & Bell (2011) emphasised, the
participants were told that the report will be publicly published.

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4 FINDINGS FROM THE PUBLIC SECTOR
Using a grounded theory approach, the findings of this study were formulated
continually throughout the study. This section will present the findings connected
to the public sector. Two employees who worked towards the public sector at Essity
were interviewed. One within the PH department, who worked as a Procurement
Manager, located in Sweden. The second interviewee worked as a Sales Manager in
Norway within the business unit HMS. Eight external organisations were
interviewed, and some brief background information about these organisations is
presented below. Please read through the background information before reading
the following sections since it will be necessary for understanding the context of
some organisations. Each external organisation was held anonymous in this study
and organisations within the public sector are denoted ‘PUBX’, with X being 1, 2, 3
and so on.

PUB1 - a distributor supplying customers in Scandinavia with cleaning products
and hygiene items among their wide range of products. A Tender Facility Manager
from PUB1, who worked strictly within public procurement, was interviewed. This is
the reason for adding PUB1 to the public section even though they as an
organisation operate in the private segment as well. They purchase products from
the PH and HMS product ranges at Essity.

PUB2 - one of the larger universities in Sweden, which o�ers education within
technology and science at an international level. The Head of Purchasing and
Procurement was interviewed. They are not a major customer of Essity, however,
they purchase some material from the product range within PH at Essity.

PUB3 - a collaboration between all Swedish regional councils with the aim of
aligning their sustainability agendas. A Sustainability Strategist and a Head of Unit
of the National Coordinators from PUB3 were interviewed. PUB3 are not
themselves a customer to Essity, however, the regional councils they support are
customers who purchase from the product ranges within HMS and PH at Essity,
either directly or through local distributors.

PUB4 - a regional council within Sweden, and is as all regional councils in Sweden
a politically governed organisation. The council is one of the bigger ones in Sweden.
A Strategic Purchaser of Healthcare Services from PUB4 was interviewed. The
interviewee was also a member of PUB3 as a Regional Coordinator. PUB4 purchase
from the product ranges within PH and HMS at Essity, however, this is done
through local distributors such as PUB1 and not directly from Essity.

PUB5 - also one of the bigger regional councils within Sweden, which means that it

30



is a politically governed organisation too. A Quality Technician within corporate
social responsibility, environment and group purchasing at the Purchasing Strategy
and Development Unit from PUB5 was interviewed. The interviewee was also a
member of PUB3 as a Regional Coordinator. PUB5 purchase products from the
product ranges within HMS and PH at Essity, either directly or indirectly from local
distributors such as PUB1.

PUB6 - likewise one of the bigger Swedish regional councils, which means it is also
a politically governed organisation. A Strategist within Sustainable Supply Chains
from PUB6 was interviewed. The interviewee was also a member of PUB3 as a
Regional Coordinator. PUB6 purchase products from the product ranges within HMS
and PH at Essity, either directly or indirectly from local distributors such as PUB1.

PUB7 - an organisation owned by the Swedish municipalities and regional councils,
whose intention is to provide shared framework agreements. A Sustainability
Strategist from PUB7 was interviewed. PUB7 have agreements with distributors
linked to Essity with the example of PUB1, where the products vary from the product
ranges of both PH and HMS.

PUB8 - a procurement authority, which provides support within public procurement
for municipalities and regional councils in Sweden. A Sustainability Specialist with
the responsibility of coordinating social sustainability was interviewed from PUB8.
PUB8 are not themselves customers of Essity, however, the authority has strong
connections to the municipalities and regions which are direct or indirect customers
to Essity.

4.1 Social sustainability as a hypernym
Social sustainability was defined in terms of human rights, child labor, labor
conditions and geographical responsibility by the interviewed public sector-facing
professionals within Essity. The interviewed customers from the public sector
included these factors in their definitions of social sustainability as well, but they
collectively provided a wider picture of the concept. In addition to human rights,
labor conditions and geographical responsibility, they included availability,
anti-corruption, and transparency for example. It is however important to note that
Essity have a code of conduct which includes a wider and more detailed definition of
social sustainability than what was put forward during the interviews. The Sales
Manager (HMS) referred to the company’s code of conduct as “the easiest answer”.
Essity’s “Business Partner Code of Conduct” is applicable for distributors,
wholesalers, resellers, sales agents, and other business partners. For Essity’s
suppliers there is instead a separate code of conduct called the Global Supplier
Standard, but this is based on the Business Partner Code of Conduct, just directed

31



towards suppliers. These codes of conduct are aligned with universal standards of
business conduct as defined by the International Bill of Human Rights, the ILO
Core Conventions and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the main
areas of focus are human rights, health and safety, employee relations, business
practices, and community involvement.

PUB4-6, which are all members of PUB3, have built their definitions of social
sustainability upon the UN Global Compact, the ILO Core Conventions, the UN
Convention on the Rights of the child, the labour protection and labour
environment legislation in force in the country of production, the labour law,
including legislation on minimum wages, and the social welfare protection
regulations in force in the country of production, the environmental protection
legislation that is in force in the country of production, and the UN Convention
against Corruption. PUB4 explained that social sustainability receives more and
more attention. In their opinion, human rights, anti-corruption and traceability in
the supply chain are important factors, which are connected to their code of
conduct. Moreover, the buyer needs to be aware of what they are purchasing
according to PUB4. PUB5 no longer divide social and environmental sustainability
into separate parts as they did six years ago, instead they view sustainability as a
singular concept. But if only social sustainability were to be defined, they
mentioned factors such as equal salary and labor rights. PUB6 reported traceability
and transparency within supply chains as the most important factors of social
sustainability, as suppliers need to have control over their supply chains in order to
prevent or mitigate factors such as unfair labor rights and child labor. Especially as
many supply chains are increasingly dynamic, international and complex, according
to PUB6. Just like PUB3 and its members, PUB7 use the UN Global Compact
definition of social sustainability. Labor rights, human rights, and control over
supply chains were mentioned as parts of this. PUB2, which is a technology
university in Sweden, also referred to the international conventions such as the UN
Global Compact and the ILO Core Conventions, which were described as profound
international requirements. Forced labor, work environment, salary agreements and
holiday pay were given as examples. PUB1 focused on child labor, forced labor and
discrimination when it comes to social sustainability. Salary agreements and
unethical procurement were also mentioned.

PUB3 argued that social sustainability is a hypernym (i.e. an umbrella term as can
be seen Figure 9) and that its definition depends on what needs to be prioritised in
each market’s geographical context. Diversity, gender inclusion, and availability
were regarded as especially important in the Swedish market for example
(availability implies the degree of which products or services are usable for all users
regardless of the user’s functional ability, which supports equality, according to
PUB3). Similarly to PUB3, PUB2 thought that the definition of social

32



sustainability was unique for each market. PUB7 also described that some factors
are more connected to Sweden, such as anti-discrimination and availability. They
added that social sustainability also needs separation as every purchaser or supplier
cannot work with everything all the time. As long as arguments are made for the
delimitation or prioritisation, it is adequate according to PUB7. PUB8, which have
influence on Swedish county councils and municipalities, reported a primary focus
on availability, individual needs, and employment of people who stand outside the
labor market. PUB8 also stated that social sustainability is harder to define than
environmental sustainability, as it can include many factors. For example, public
health has become a more central factor during the times of Covid-19.

Figure 9: Social sustainability as a hypernym (umbrella term).

Essity’s policies for social sustainability have many similarities to those of current
or potential customers in the public sector, for example there seems to be consensus
around the UN Global Compact and the ILO Core Conventions. But when looking at
the individual definitions by interviewees both internally within Essity and externally,
it is apparent that people make di�erent associations when asked to define social
sustainability. The idea that social sustainability can be regarded as a hypernym
may serve as an explanation to this phenomenon, since everyone would then define it
according to their own context.

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4.2 Ine�ective communication and limited proactivity
In the HMS business unit at Essity, map-outs of the logistics, distribution,
environmental impact, and working conditions throughout the value chain are used
in their communication about social sustainability. Structure and clarity are
important factors when doing this. The Procurement Manager (PH) stated that one
important aspect when communicating about social sustainability was to tailor the
message to each customer. Furthermore, the Procurement Manager (PH) indicated
that examples from certain initiatives, such as hygiene education, could be a way to
go. In addition, Essity employees sometimes forget to communicate about social
sustainability since it has become so natural from their point of view.

One finding about how suppliers communicate their social sustainability
performance that was clearly recurring during the interviews was that the
communication tends to be quite limited to discussions about the customers’ codes
of conduct. PUB1 reported that they only experience communication about social
sustainability from their suppliers in relation to discussions about their (PUB1’s)
code of conduct. PUB2 stated this too, also adding that they prefer to have it that
way since too much information can be di�cult to manage during the procurement
process. Similarly to PUB2, the county council PUB6 described how the
communication regarding social sustainability only occurs on PUB6’s demand,
meaning via code of conduct, follow-ups (i.e. various compliance control processes),
and report requests, which is also the approach they prefer. Otherwise, it could
easily be too much information in the procurement process. PUB3 stated that
communication about social sustainability is primarily received through codes of
conduct as well, or when follow-ups are performed. PUB4, which is a Swedish
county council and therefore member of PUB3, gave a similar picture to that of
PUB3. They mainly engage in social sustainability discussions if the supplier
deviates from their code of conduct. PUB5, which is also a county council and
member of PUB3, explained that it depends on which supplier they are engaged
with. However, social sustainability is primarily communicated through the code of
conduct and follow-ups. Suppliers could possibly communicate about it to other
departments within the organisation, but it would be highly unlikely to reach the
procurement process.

Some other findings, in addition to the aspects stated in the previous paragraph, are
presented in the following sentences. PUB2 have sometimes employed external
consultants to evaluate suppliers’ social sustainability performance. Suppliers are
often more immature when it comes to communicating about social sustainability,
compared to the environmental counterpart, according to PUB3. Only a few
regional councils experience communication about social sustainability. PUB3
recommend suppliers to implement better routines for communicating about social

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sustainability. For PUB7, the communication occurs in two ways. First, if PUB7
require some information in the procurement process, and second, during audits.
PUB7 will for example not themselves search through the supplier’s website in order
to find relevant information, however, they could follow media reporting in order to
collect some information. For example, when the palm oil scandal occurred, PUB7
spoke to suppliers about their supply chains to evaluate if they had any connections
or risks in relation to the scandal. For PUB8, which is a Swedish authority and not
a current or potential customer to Essity per sé, communication about social
sustainability occurs only when municipalities and regional councils ask for their
support.

Essity’s e�orts to communicate about social sustainability towards customers in the
public sector may not be all that e�ective. They do communicate about it to some
degree and at some occasions, but not always, and they do not seem to have any
clear strategies for the communication when it is being conducted. Customers in the
public sector generally perceive communication about social sustainability to
surround their codes of conduct and the suppliers’ compliance of those, with limited
proactive communication beyond this from the suppliers. Some public customers
explicitly preferred to have it this way, but at the same time it was also found
during the interviews that social sustainability definitely has the potential to
increase competitiveness. PUB2, which was one of the customers stating a
preference for limiting the information exchange during procurement processes,
expressed conviction that communicating and working with social sustainability
would lead to a competitive advantage. This was also agreed upon by PUB5. PUB7
stated that it probably would. PUB1 and PUB3-6 stated that it could be
interesting to implement price-reductions for suppliers that perform well within
social sustainability, this is elaborated further in Section 4.3. Please note once more
that the interviewees were not necessarily current customers to Essity and therefore
their views may not be based on Essity’s behaviour in the market.

Looking at when social sustainability is communicated, instead of how (which was
addressed in the previous paragraphs), the Procurement Manager (PH) explained
that they try to incorporate communication about sustainability in their daily
communication between Essity and their customers. Especially descriptions of the
whole picture, recommending customers to investigate the total impact or cost
rather than purchasing the cheapest products as there could be hidden factors. The
Sales Manager (HMS) also expressed that they try to get it into the daily
communication even though they are not so good at doing it at the moment. It was
further described by the Procurement Manager (PH) that the contracts are signed
in the beginning of the procurement phase and that is when the requirements
regarding social sustainability are observed. If they as a supplier cannot fulfil those
requirements, they will not proceed in the procurement. Moreover, if the customers

35



have any additional concerns regarding Essity’s social sustainability work, they can
easily look it up themselves on Essity’s website according to the interviewee. Later
in the procurement process, the Procurement Manager (PH) described how the
focus shifts to price. In the Sales Manager (HMS) perspective, communication
about social sustainability is currently more connected to the formal part of the
procurement process. However, they have got better at raising the topic during the
pre-discussion for tendering. Sometimes they even try to work proactively, but most
of the time they communicate their social sustainability work upon requests from
customers according to the Sales Manager (HMS).

The customers’ experiences regarding when social sustainability is communicated
during the procurement process seem to reflect Essity’s view quite accurately
(please note however that it is unclear to which degree PUB1-8 are current
customers to Essity). PUB1 stated that social sustainability is never communicated
proactively by their suppliers, only via code of conduct discussions. Similarly, PUB2
said that it is unusual that social sustainability is communicated beyond what is
required in the code of conduct. According to PUB3, it occurs during contract
administration and follow-ups. They have created a 10-year plan to encourage more
communication about social sustainability in the early phases of procurement, as
this is unusual. PUB4-6 all confirmed the view of PUB3, stating that it mainly
happens during contract agreements and audits. A similar picture was portrayed by
PUB7, with the added aspect that they stated media reporting as a relevant stream
of communication. PUB8 do not engage as a buyer and therefore did not have
anything to say about when social sustainability is communicated during
procurement processes.

4.3 Shaping the requirements of public customers
Neither of the Essity interviewees considered social sustainability as the main
customer requirement. The Sales Manager (HMS) described that customers are still
quite limited in how much social sustainability they put in their requirements. Most
are binary conditions for being considered as a supplier, either you fulfil them and
qualify as a potential supplier or you do not. However, the Sales Manager (HMS)
believed that there could be some requirements for control over the sustainability in
their value chain, documentation that the company invests resources and time in
social sustainability, and that they take the issues seriously. It can be challenging to
make the customer understand that time and resources are invested in social
sustainability, which is important for the subject to be taken seriously. The
Procurement Manager (PH) expressed that processes for procurement of products
are more rigid than those for procurement of services and that social sustainability
tends to be more important in the latter. For products, price is often still a
dominant factor and the questions about sustainability mostly concern

36



environmental factors. The Procurement Manager (PH) also explained how it is
harder for Essity to di�erentiate their products on the market as a result of products
becoming more alike nowadays. This aligns with PUB1’s belief that it could be hard
for suppliers to di�erentiate themselves as many buyers have high requirements.

PUB3 have successfully started to converge the sustainability requirements among
Swedish county councils. Their requirements are in line with the conventions stated
in Section 4.1, e.g. the UN Global Compact’s guidelines. They also require that the
suppliers have a due diligence process for managing those. The purpose of PUB3’s
requirements is mainly to mitigate risks and negative e�ects on humans. The
requirements are equally important, however, they sometimes need to prioritise
based on where the biggest risks are in each context. The major requirement from
PUB4 is risk management from suppliers’ perspective, that suppliers are aware of
risks and have processes for addressing them. Di�erent regions can have di�erent
risks and therefore awareness based on the context is important. Pakistan was given
as an example where it is known that labor rights and working conditions could be
risks, so if a supplier is sourcing from Pakistan it would be important to have those
specific risks in control. PUB5 have similar requirements as the ones put together
by PUB3. However, they added that the hardest one to identify and follow up on
could be failures within corruption. All requirements are prioritised equally, but
there could be di�erentiations regarding which type of supplier is being audited and
what aspects that have appeared. PUB6 described that they apply the PUB3’s
requirements for social sustainability as well. PUB6 prefer suppliers who have
routines and processes for managing social sustainability. Many suppliers approve
the code of conduct even if they cannot execute them, which they sometimes get
away with as buyers do not always have the resources to follow up, according to
PUB6. PUB7 also apply PUB3’s requirements for social sustainability. They
emphasised the importance of not forgetting about the impact suppliers might have
on their surrounding society, which could include human rights violations and the
right to health.

PUB1 put considerable weight in what they define as social sustainability, namely
child labor and forced labor, discrimination and salary agreements. It is of essence
that the supplier fulfils all their requirements, preferably throughout the whole
supply chain. There is no di�erentiation between the factors, they are all equally
important and the aim is to fulfil them all. Every piece is an important part in a big
puzzle. PUB2 have requirements corresponding to the ILO Core Conventions and
they expect that suppliers fulfil all of them. PUB8, which is an organisation that is
dislocated from procurement processes and plays an advisory role for county
councils and municipalities in Sweden, stated that labor rights, availability, and
employment are highly valued requirements for them. To them it is also important
to help customers to fulfil the law. Other factors could be added in the future.

37



PUB8 often focus on what is being procured the most, where the volumes are large.

Every interviewee thought that social sustainability could increase the
competitiveness among suppliers. According to PUB1, less than 10 % of all
procurement processes include social sustainability but if suppliers put higher
pressure on the end-customer regarding social sustainability, the end-customer could
in turn increase their requirements which could potentially benefit the suppliers that
perform well within social sustainability, and communicate it in a good way.
Another beneficial approach could be to implement price-reductions for suppliers
managing social sustainability well, according to PUB1. PUB2 was convinced that
working with and communicating about social sustainability would lead to a
competitive advantage and possibly price-reductions. PUB3 stated, similarly to
PUB1, that putting pressure on the end-customer to adjust their requirements could
benefit suppliers that perform well. PUB4 supported this too. The approach of
implementing price-reductions for suppliers managing social sustainability well is
under investigation within PUB3 (i.e. including PUB4-6). In PUB5’s case, the
approach of implementing price-reductions for suppliers managing social
sustainability well is under investigation, however, there has yet not been a
consensus about it. PUB6, which is part of PUB3, stated that they already had
such a process in place. Price-reduction is a concept that entails emulating that a
supplier has a lower price in tender processes if they can prove extraordinary
performance in another field. This was introduced by S. Henricson in the beginning
of the study as a hypothetical way to turn social sustainability into a competitive
advantage.

According to PUB7, proactively communicating about social sustainability will
probably lead to a competitive advantage, however the supplier should be aware of
the potential for increased scrutiny resulting from this. PUB8 stated that suppliers
performing social sustainability well should increase the customers’ knowledge about
social sustainability, during contract periods, as it could lead to customers
increasing their requirements, which could potentially benefit the suppliers in
return. Suppliers should proactively promote their solutions regarding social
sustainability, as the market does not always know what to look for according to
PUB8.

There is an opportunity to influence the requirements of the county councils during
a contract according to PUB6. Every supplier needs to be treated equally during
the procurement process according to the EU procurement directives so it is not
possible to negotiate or influen