Collaboration has the potential to aid the balancing of values and goals that belong to different, sometimes competing, policy fields, such as energy, climate adaptation and nature conservation-a key component of sustainable governance. However, we need to know more of how collaboration can function as integrating (and integrated) components of governance systems. Three regulated Swedish rivers are used here as examples to explore factors that influence this function. The following factors are identified: transparency of value trade-offs, understanding of collaboration and governance, interplay between public sectors, integrating funding mechanisms, clarity of mandate, strategic use of networks and consistency of the governance system. As a consequence of the poor management of these factors in our case, water quality and ecology values are not integrated in strategic decision making, e.g., regarding hydropower, urban development or climate adaptation. Instead, they are considered add-ons, or "decorations". The Swedish case illustrates the meaning of the factors and their great importance for achieving sustainable governance.