The Critical Foundations of Truly Sustainable Environmental Auditing : Prioritizing Insight and Impact Over Information Verification
(2025)- Abstract
- This essay addresses the urgent need for transformative action in environmental governance by exploring the role and essential functionality of environmental auditing. While critical scholarship has questioned the overemphasis on reporting in both research and practice, this essay promotes the obligation on critical accountants and auditing researchers to actively debate and develop the concept of environmental audit, rather than accepting it as a given by businesses, audit providers, policymakers, standard setters, and regulatory authorities. Left as it is, environmental auditing risks being confronted with increasingly complex environmental information that belies verification and engenders assurance reports that close down, rather than... (More)
- This essay addresses the urgent need for transformative action in environmental governance by exploring the role and essential functionality of environmental auditing. While critical scholarship has questioned the overemphasis on reporting in both research and practice, this essay promotes the obligation on critical accountants and auditing researchers to actively debate and develop the concept of environmental audit, rather than accepting it as a given by businesses, audit providers, policymakers, standard setters, and regulatory authorities. Left as it is, environmental auditing risks being confronted with increasingly complex environmental information that belies verification and engenders assurance reports that close down, rather than promote, accountability. This essay proposes several critical foundations for a more impactful and sustainable approach to environmental auditing. These include prioritizing the primacy of the following: the linkage between environmental audit and accountability; moving beyond an organization-centric representation of environmental audit; and the provision of more insightful audit reports in place of routinely restricted forms of assurance. Collectively, these foundations reposition environmental audit as a dynamic practice for fostering accountability and meaningful change, rather than mere compliance with regulation and standards. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/a1dbc1ec-d913-41ee-9664-1e3bbd1136a8
- author
- Riise Johansen, Thomas ; Sonnerfeldt, Amanda LU and Humphrey, Christopher
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-05-27
- type
- Working paper/Preprint
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Environmental auditing, Accountability, critical accounting, social-ecological systems
- pages
- 19 pages
- publisher
- SSRN
- DOI
- 10.2139/ssrn.5270173
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a1dbc1ec-d913-41ee-9664-1e3bbd1136a8
- date added to LUP
- 2025-10-06 22:52:33
- date last changed
- 2025-10-07 09:29:17
@misc{a1dbc1ec-d913-41ee-9664-1e3bbd1136a8,
abstract = {{This essay addresses the urgent need for transformative action in environmental governance by exploring the role and essential functionality of environmental auditing. While critical scholarship has questioned the overemphasis on reporting in both research and practice, this essay promotes the obligation on critical accountants and auditing researchers to actively debate and develop the concept of environmental audit, rather than accepting it as a given by businesses, audit providers, policymakers, standard setters, and regulatory authorities. Left as it is, environmental auditing risks being confronted with increasingly complex environmental information that belies verification and engenders assurance reports that close down, rather than promote, accountability. This essay proposes several critical foundations for a more impactful and sustainable approach to environmental auditing. These include prioritizing the primacy of the following: the linkage between environmental audit and accountability; moving beyond an organization-centric representation of environmental audit; and the provision of more insightful audit reports in place of routinely restricted forms of assurance. Collectively, these foundations reposition environmental audit as a dynamic practice for fostering accountability and meaningful change, rather than mere compliance with regulation and standards.}},
author = {{Riise Johansen, Thomas and Sonnerfeldt, Amanda and Humphrey, Christopher}},
keywords = {{Environmental auditing; Accountability; critical accounting; social-ecological systems}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{05}},
note = {{Preprint}},
publisher = {{SSRN}},
title = {{The Critical Foundations of Truly Sustainable Environmental Auditing : Prioritizing Insight and Impact Over Information Verification}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5270173}},
doi = {{10.2139/ssrn.5270173}},
year = {{2025}},
}