Assessing the Relationship Between Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Firm Performance - A Study of Norwegian Companies in Light of the CSRD Directive

This master's thesis examines the impact of readiness for the forthcoming EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) on the firm performance of Norwegian companies. Our mixed-method approach combines quantitative and qualitative analysis to explore the extent to which firm performance is affected by their preparedness for the directive. Our findings reveal a lack of opportunities for companies to benefit from high- quality reporting, highlighting the need for legislation to promote sustainable reporting practices. Notably, our remote analysis indicates no significant relationship between CSRD and stock return. However, our study introduces a novel method for assessing the quality of sustainability reports relative to the directive, which will be even more applicable once it is fully implemented. This research contributes to the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of sustainability reporting in promoting transparency and accountability in corporate sustainability practices and its impact on financial performance

Chasing the bird: 3D acoustic tracking of aerial flight displays with a minimal planar microphone array

Tracking the flight patterns of birds and bats in three-dimensional space is central to key questions in evolutionary ecology but remains a difficult technical challenge. For example, complex aerial flight displays are common among birds breeding in open habitats, but information on flight performance is limited. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of using a large ground-based 4-microphone planar array to track the aerial flight displays of the cryptic Jack Snipe Lymnocryptes minimus. The main element of male display flights resembles a galloping horse at a distance. Under conditions of sufficient signal-to-noise ratio and of vertical alignment with the microphone array, we successfully tracked male snipe in 3D space for up to 25 seconds with a total flight path of 280 m. The ’gallop’ phase of male snipe dropped from ca. 141 to 64 m above ground at an average velocity of 77 km/h and up to 92 km/h. Our project is one of the first applications of bioacoustics to measure 3D flight paths of birds under field conditions, and our results were consistent with our visual observations. Our microphone array and postprocessing workflow provides a standardised protocol that could be used to collect comparative data on birds with complex aerial flight displays. Acoustic display; animal flight; flight tracking; Jack Snipe; Lymnocryptes minimus; microphone arraypublishedVersio

Temporal and spatial variations in lice numbers on salmon farms in the Hardanger fjord 2004-06

The long and narrow Hardanger fjord in western Norway has a high density of salmon farms and has had severe salmon lice, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, problems. In the years 2004-06, salmon lice numbers were recorded in selected salmon farms in the fjord as part of a larger research project. Most farm sites participated in a strategic control programme and were deloused between November and January in each year. The aim of the programme was to achieve a mean abundance of <0.3 adult female lice at this time and to minimize the infection pressure on wild smolts in the spring. Dedicated teams carried out detailed counting of lice on farmed fish in April-September each year. Temperature conditions were fairly similar throughout the fjord and amongst years, but wide variations in salinities were observed. The two innermost zones, B and C, had the lowest lice mean abundances, whereas the outermost zones, D and E, consistently had more lice. General linear model analyses showed that differences in adult female lice abundance between the zones were associated with differing levels of salinity and emamectin benzoate treatments strategically administered. Mean fish weight was significantly positively correlated with mean abundance of adult female lice

Censuses of breeding birds in a South Norwegian arctic-alpine habitat three decades apart show population declines in the most common species

Breeding bird censuses along line transects on the Hardangervidda plateau, southern Norway, were performed on open mountain heath at about1250 m elevation in 1980 and repeated in 2010 and 2011. Four passerine species and three species of waders constitute the commonest breeders. Significant decrease in numbers was found in the three commonest species, Meadow Pipit Anthus pratensis (down 40 %), Northern Wheatear Oenanthe oenanthe (down 65&ndash;67 %) and, in particular, Lapland Bunting Calcarius lapponicus (down 82&ndash;87 %). The decline in Lapland Bunting is discussed in relation to changes in the vegetation on the breeding grounds probably caused by reduced grazing and climatic changes, and in relation to possible negative factors in parts of the wintering area

Terrestriske fuglearter som indikatorer for bærekraftig utvikling i Norge: tilstanden i ulike naturtyper og effekter av klimaendring

Det er behov for gode indikatorer for å følge tilstanden i norske økosystemer, blant annet for å kunne vurdere om vi har en utvikling som er bærekraftig. Fugl har mange egenskaper som gjør de godt egnet som indikator på økosystemets tilstand. Derfor er fugler inkludert blant indikatorer for bærekraftig utvikling både i EU, Norge og mange andre land. Det finnes mange ulike fuglearter med stor spredning i levesett, og ikke alle er like godt egnet som indikatorer. Hensikten med denne utredningen er å identifisere arter som er egnet som indikatorer for tilstand og utvikling i naturtypene fjell, skog, våtmark og vannkant, og kulturlandskapet, samt for effekter av klimaendring. Dette arbeidet er basert på en gjennomgang av relevant informasjon om hekkefugl i Norge.Direktoratet for Naturforvaltnin

Population trends of waders on their boreal and arctic breeding grounds in northern Europe

Waders form a conspicuous part of the bird fauna in boreal and arctic areas, where they inhabit forests, wetlands, mires and tundra. These are important breeding areas for a large set of wader species, and may be particularly vulnerable to climate change. However, large-scale and systematic monitoring data from the breeding grounds of boreal and arctic waders are largely lacking. We present population trends for 22 wader species breeding in the boreal and arctic parts of Fennoscandia (Norway, Sweden and Finland) between 2006 and 2018. The trends are based on 9,713 surveys of 1,505 unique routes (6–8 km), each surveyed in at least two years, evenly distributed over an area of ~1 million km2. The trends were significantly negative for three species: Red-necked Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus (–7.9% year-1), Broad-billed Sandpiper Calidris falcinellus (–5.4% year-1), and Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus (–1.3% year-1). The trends were significantly positive for three species: Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus (+4.9% year-1), Dunlin Calidris a. alpina (+4.2% year-1) and Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola (+0.8% year-1). For the remaining species, we found no statistically significant trends. On average, as shown by a multi-species indicator, there was no general change in numbers over time. On 1,539 routes with at least one survey, wader species richness as well as total number of wader pairs increased significantly with increasing latitude. Species population trend was not correlated with breeding latitude, but population trends of long-distance migrants tended to be more negative than those of medium-distance migrants. The recent fortunes of waders breeding in northern Fennoscandia have been more buoyant than those in other parts of Europe, but the trends for some species are worrying. © 2019, International Wader Study Group. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Species distributions models may predict accurately future distributions but poorly how distributions change : A critical perspective on model validation

Aim: Species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used to make predictions on how species distributions may change as a response to climatic change. To assess the reliability of those predictions, they need to be critically validated with respect to what they are used for. While ecologists are typically interested in how and where distributions will change, we argue that SDMs have seldom been evaluated in terms of their capacity to predict such change. Instead, typical retrospective validation methods estimate model's ability to predict to only one static time in future. Here, we apply two validation methods, one that predicts and evaluates a static pattern, while the other measures change and compare their estimates of predictive performance. Location: Fennoscandia.Methods: We applied a joint SDM to model the distributions of 120 bird species in four model validation settings. We trained models with a dataset from 1975 to 1999 and predicted species' future occurrence and abundance in two ways: for one static time period (2013- 2016, "static validation') and for a change between two time periods (difference between 1996- 1999 and 2013- 2016, "change validation'). We then measured predictive performance using correlation between predicted and observed values. We also related predictive performance to species traits. Results: Even though static validation method evaluated predictive performance as good, change method indicated very poor performance. Predictive performance was not strongly related to any trait.Main Conclusions: Static validation method might overestimate predictive performance by not revealing the model's inability to predict change events. If species' distributions remain mostly stable, then even an unfit model can predict the near future well due to temporal autocorrelation. We urge caution when working with forecasts of changes in spatial patterns of species occupancy or abundance, even for SDMs that are based on time series datasets unless they are critically validated for forecasting such change.Peer reviewe

Quantifying energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions of road infrastructure projects: An LCA case study of the Oslo fjord crossing in Norway.

The road sector consumes large amounts of materials and energy and produces large quantities of greenhouse gas emissions, which can be reduced with correct information in the early planning stages of road project. An important aspect in the early planning stages is the choice between alternative road corridors that will determine the route distance and the subsequent need for different road infrastructure elements, such as bridges and tunnels. Together, these factors may heavily influence the life cycle environmental impacts of the road project. This paper presents a case study for two prospective road corridor alternatives for the Oslo fjord crossing in Norway and utilizes in a streamlined model based on life cycle assessment principles to quantify cumulative energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions for each route. This technique can be used to determine potential environmental impacts of road projects by overcoming several challenges in the early planning stages, such as the limited availability of detailed life cycle inventory data on the consumption of material and energy inputs, large uncertainty in the design and demand for road infrastructure elements, as well as in future traffic and future vehicle technologies. The results show the importance of assessing different life cycle activities, input materials, fuels and the critical components of such a system. For the Oslo fjord case, traffic during operation contributes about 94 % and 89 % of the annual CED and about 98 % and 92 % of the annual GHG emissions, for a tunnel and a bridge fjord crossing alternative respectively

Ecosystem recharge by volcanic dust drives broad-scale variation in bird abundance

Across the globe, deserts and volcanic eruptions produce large volumes of atmospheric dust, and the amount of dust is predicted to increase with global warming. The effects of long-distance airborne dust inputs on ecosystem productivity are potentially far-reaching but have primarily been measured in soil and plants. Airborne dust could also drive distribution and abundance at higher trophic levels, but opportunities to explore these relationships are rare. Here we use Iceland's steep dust deposition gradients to assess the influence of dust on the distribution and abundance of internationally important ground-nesting bird populations. Surveys of the abundance of breeding birds at 729 locations throughout lowland Iceland were used to explore the influence of dust deposition on bird abundance in agricultural, dry, and wet habitats. Dust deposition had a strong positive effect on bird abundance across Iceland in dry and wet habitats, but not in agricultural land where nutrient levels are managed. The abundance of breeding waders, the dominant group of terrestrial birds in Iceland, tripled on average between the lowest and highest dust deposition classes in both wet and dry habitats. The deposition and redistribution of volcanic materials can have powerful impacts in terrestrial ecosystems and can be a major driver of the abundance of higher trophic-level organisms at broad spatial scales. The impacts of volcanic ash deposition during eruptions and subsequent redistribution of unstable volcanic materials are strong enough to override effects of underlying variation in organic matter and clay content on ecosystem fertility. Global rates of atmospheric dust deposition are likely to increase with increasing desertification and glacier retreat, and this study demonstrates that the effects on ecosystems are likely to be far-reaching, both in terms of spatial scales and ecosystem components