IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ssi/jouesi/v9y2022i3p298-316.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the relation between sustainability report and assurance standards in Brazilian financial institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanna Facury Aigner

    (University of São Paulo, Brazil)

  • Joshua Onome Imoniana

    (University of São Paulo, Brazil)

  • Washington Lopes Silva

    (University of São Paulo, Brazil)

Abstract

This study investigates the adherence to standards for assuring Sustainability Reports of financial Institutions listed on B3 stock market between 2016 and 2018. Drawing on 34 Brazilian institutions, we performed the content analysis of the criteria for sustainability assurance in relation to corporate governance by answering the question of how are the sustainability reports prepared by the financial institutions based on the corporate governance classification standards? We posit and find that among institutions investigated, 60.6% disclosed some type of Sustainability Report and only 50% (10 Institutions) performed sustainability assessment of the released reports. The assurance standards of the audited institutions follow 77.7% of the criteria identified as essential to integrity of such reports. This lens of reporting presents the constructs of probable choices aimed by the approaches among the financial institutions to show credibility and transparency. As a result, present a pattern of behaviours of these organisations towards a sustainability reporting. Overall, findings yield important insights on the criteria of sustainability assurance thus signaling a need for better monitoring scheme for voluntary disclosures.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanna Facury Aigner & Joshua Onome Imoniana & Washington Lopes Silva, 2022. "On the relation between sustainability report and assurance standards in Brazilian financial institutions," Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, vol. 9(3), pages 298-316, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:ssi:jouesi:v:9:y:2022:i:3:p:298-316
    DOI: 10.9770/jesi.2022.9.3(18)
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://jssidoi.org/jesi/uploads/articles/35/Aigner_On_the_relation_between_sustainability_report_and_assurance_standards_in_Brazilian_financial_institutions.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://jssidoi.org/jesi/article/950
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.9770/jesi.2022.9.3(18)?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brown, Judy & Dillard, Jesse, 2013. "Critical accounting and communicative action: On the limits of consensual deliberation," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 176-190.
    2. Bebbington, Jan & Kirk, Elizabeth A. & Larrinaga, Carlos, 2012. "The production of normativity: A comparison of reporting regimes in Spain and the UK," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 78-94.
    3. Giacomo Manetti & Lucia Becatti, 2009. "Assurance Services for Sustainability Reports: Standards and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(1), pages 289-298, April.
    4. Amanpreet Kaur & Sumit Lodhia, 2018. "Stakeholder engagement in sustainability accounting and reporting," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(1), pages 338-368, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Natalia Vaz Ogando & Silvia Ruiz Blanco & Belen Fernandez-Feijoo, 2018. "A Provider’s Approach to the Assurance Market of Sustainability Reports in Spain," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-27, June.
    2. Carlos Larrinaga & Adriana Rossi & Mercedes Luque-Vilchez & Manuel Núñez-Nickel, 2020. "Institutionalization of the Contents of Sustainability Assurance Services: A Comparison Between Italy and United States," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 67-83, April.
    3. Laura Sierra-Garcia & Maria Antonia Garcia-Benau & Helena Maria Bollas-Araya, 2018. "Empirical Analysis of Non-Financial Reporting by Spanish Companies," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-17, July.
    4. Michelon, Giovanna & Pilonato, Silvia & Ricceri, Federica, 2015. "CSR reporting practices and the quality of disclosure: An empirical analysis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 59-78.
    5. Rambaud, Alexandre & Richard, Jacques, 2015. "The “Triple Depreciation Line” instead of the “Triple Bottom Line”: Towards a genuine integrated reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 92-116.
    6. Elizabeth-Anne Thomas, 2019. "How Useful Is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Reporting Framework to Identify the Non-financial Value of Corporate Social Performance (CSP)?," CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance, in: Nicholas Capaldi & Samuel O. Idowu & René Schmidpeter & Martin Brueckner (ed.), Responsible Business in Uncertain Times and for a Sustainable Future, pages 37-87, Springer.
    7. Nadia Albu & Catalin Nicolae Albu & Madalina Dumitru & Valentin Florentin Dumitru, 2013. "Plurality or convergence in sustainability reporting standards?," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 15(Special 7), pages 729-742, November.
    8. Flasher, R. & Luchs, C.K. & Souza, J.L., 2018. "Sustainability assurance provider participation in standard setting," Research in Accounting Regulation, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 20-25.
    9. Al-Shaer, Habiba & Zaman, Mahbub, 2016. "Board gender diversity and sustainability reporting quality," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 210-222.
    10. Thereza RS de Aguiar, 2018. "Turning accounting for emissions rights inside out as well as upside down," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(1), pages 139-159, February.
    11. Oluyomi A. Osobajo & Adekunle Oke & Ama Lawani & Temitope S. Omotayo & Nkeiruka Ndubuka-McCallum & Lovelin Obi, 2022. "Providing a Roadmap for Future Research Agenda: A Bibliometric Literature Review of Sustainability Performance Reporting (SPR)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-20, July.
    12. Olivier Boiral, 2010. "Peut-on mesurer les performances de développement durable?," CIRANO Working Papers 2010s-11, CIRANO.
    13. John Smith & Ros Haniffa & Jenny Fairbrass, 2011. "A Conceptual Framework for Investigating ‘Capture’ in Corporate Sustainability Reporting Assurance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 99(3), pages 425-439, March.
    14. Teresa Eugénio & Sónia Gomes & Manuel Castelo Branco & Ana Isabel Morais, 2022. "Non-Financial Reporting and Assurance: A New Opportunity for Auditors? Evidence from Portugal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-15, October.
    15. Andrea Venturelli & Fabio Caputo & Simona Cosma & Rossella Leopizzi & Simone Pizzi, 2017. "Directive 2014/95/EU: Are Italian Companies Already Compliant?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-19, August.
    16. Charles H. Cho & Jonathan Maurice & Emmanuelle Nègre & Marie-Anne Verdier, 2016. "Is environmental disclosure good for the environment? A meta-analysis and research agenda," Post-Print halshs-01369422, HAL.
    17. Sabrina Spallini & Virginia Milone & Antonio Nisio & Patrizia Romanazzi, 2021. "The Dimension of Sustainability: A Comparative Analysis of Broadness of Information in Italian Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-22, January.
    18. Jonas Wanner & Christian Janiesch, 2019. "Big data analytics in sustainability reports: an analysis based on the perceived credibility of corporate published information," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 12(1), pages 143-173, April.
    19. Katrin Hummel & Christian Schlick & Matthias Fifka, 2019. "The Role of Sustainability Performance and Accounting Assurors in Sustainability Assurance Engagements," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 733-757, February.
    20. Tregidga, Helen & Milne, Markus J., 2022. "Not at our table: Stakeholder exclusion and ant/agonistic engagements," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sustainability report; Global Reporting Initiative (GRI); assurance standards; corporate governance; financial market; financial institutions; Brazil;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M40 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - General
    • M42 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Auditing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ssi:jouesi:v:9:y:2022:i:3:p:298-316. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Manuela Tvaronaviciene (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.