Independent assurance on corporate sustainability reports.

摘要

Since the early 1990's, there has been a growing trend by large corporations to publicly issue formal reports containing information on their sustainable development, or ‘sustainability’, performance. There has been a secondary trend to include statements by independent third parties in these reports to provide assurance to the readers that the information in the reports is credible. This interdisciplinary dissertation examines the concepts behind, and the practice of, providing independent assurance on corporate sustainability reports.; The research methods include a literature review in three fields: corporate sustainability, corporate sustainability reporting, and auditing and assurance; two case studies of sustainability report assurance engagements; and a content analysis of a sample of assurance statements collected through an Internet survey.; This study found that providing independent assurance on corporate sustainability reports is rapidly evolving area which comprises concepts from numerous fields, including sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory, and financial assurance, along with a wide diversity of practitioners, practices, and terminology. However, this study found there are three emerging assurance models: the accountancy, consultancy, and stakeholder models. Similarly, this study found that there are three general styles of assurance statements from corporate sustainability reports: the accountancy style, the consultancy style, and commentaries. Finally, this study found that the principles and processes traditionally associated with financial assurance can generally apply to assurance on corporate sustainability reports. However, two differences exist: (1) althothere are as yet no widely-held standards for providing assurance on sustainability report audits comparable to the accounting profession's generally accepted assurance standards (GAAS), and (2) there is a lack of recognized criteria comparable to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).