Voluntary sustainability reporting is an increasingly important theme in accounting and entrepreneurial research. The purpose of this study was to examine the financial impact of voluntary sustainability reporting, in particular CSRD, for listed and private Swedish SMEs, with a focus on financial profitability and stakeholder relationships. The study was based on an interpretivist research philosophy with an inductive approach to theory development. A qualitative interpretivist methodology was followed, combining semi-structured interviews with five representatives across three Swedish SMEs, triangulated with financial ratio analysis spanning three fiscal years per company. 

The findings show that voluntary sustainability reporting neither uniformly benefits nor burdens financial profitability, but that outcomes are highly dependent on context and mediated by ownership structure and strategic implementation. Listed SMEs were found to realize stakeholder benefits primarily through investor perception and access to green financing, while private SMEs realized returns through commercial customer relationships. Regulatory instability, driven by the Omnibus amendments to the CSRD, was found to be a systemic moderating factor generating stranded preparation costs and discouraging future sustainability investment across all case companies. 

Organizations can use these findings to make more informed strategic decisions about if, how, and through which framework to pursue voluntary sustainability reporting, ensuring that investments are oriented towards commercially relevant stakeholder demands rather than regulatory compliance alone.