European Sustainability Reporting Standards : En kvalitativ analyse av kommentarbrev publisert av selskaper i revisjonsbransjen mot ISAE 3000-rammeverket og EFRAGs utkast til standard for bærekraftsrapportering

Abstract

Today, there is a great focus and many expectations on how sustainability reporting for the business sector in Europe will be and how it will be prepared. The background of the study is EFRAG’s launch of a public publication of the draft of a European sustainability standard, with various requirements linked to 13 sustainability themes, with a deadline for feedback in August 2022. A broad variety of different stakeholders responded to the draft, through a two-part survey. The new sustainability standard is a part of CSRD and is expected to enter into force from 2024. The set of standards is called the European Sustainability Reporting Standard (ESRS). The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the auditing industry reacted to the draft of ESRS. Thereafter to investigate the challenges and suggestions for improvement, by analyzing published comment letters and surveys. Our research question of this thesis is “what reactions and expectations from the auditing industry have come as a result of the draft on the sustainability reporting standards, and which challenges does this entail for the auditors’ assurance of non-financial information?”. In order to answer this question, we have utilized relevant theory and research as our starting point. Furthermore, we have used qualitative theory, feedback from the companies within the auditing industry, the ESRS and ISAE 3000 standards. We find that the feedback can be linked to five conditions: the use of a materiality assessment, the value chain, the implementation process, the auditor’s assurance of non-financial information and information overload.