Call for paper: Sustainability Auditing and Assurance – Standardisation and Practice Diversity

Sustainability Auditing and Assurance – Standardisation and Practice Diversity

Sustainability auditing and assurance (SAA) have become crucial mechanisms for enhancing transparency, accountability, and credibility of sustainability disclosures across both the public and private sectors. As global sustainability challenges intensify, organisations face increasing pressure from regulators, investors, and civil society to provide accurate, reliable, and verifiable disclosure on their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance (Brusca et al., 2024; Harrer & Lehner, 2024; Rezaee et al., 2023).

SAA now plays a central role in strengthening transparency, mitigating greenwashing risks, fostering stakeholder trust and confidence and ensuring compliance with evolving regulatory requirements (Aliyu, 2024; Bentley-Goode et al., 2024; Harrer & Lehner, 2024; Grossi et al., 2023).

The aim was that it would reach down to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as well and that the CSRD would transition from requiring limited assurance to reasonable assurance. While this ambitious project would have seen companies within its scope ensuring their sustainability reports meet rigorous standards of accuracy and comparability. Yet in late February 2025 the European Commission issues an ‘omnibus’ to simplify the requirements (EC, 2025) and, while it is being debated, the path forward is less clear.

These changes do not exist in isolation but align with broader international developments. Regulators are actively involved in shaping sustainability reporting, driving the rapid development of new and converging frameworks. Among the most significant are the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), mandatory for undertakings in scope of the CSRD, and the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards set by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), which, while voluntary, are being integrated into several national jurisdictions outside the EU (KPMG, 2024), highlighting a global trend toward standardisation.

Despite significant regulatory advancements, SAA remains fragmented due to jurisdictional variations in assurance standards, provider requirements, and disclosure expectations, creating a complex compliance landscape (Sánchez-Sancho et al., 2024). The absence of a globally mandated assurance standard results in disparities between jurisdictions with mandatory and voluntary assurance requirements (Meqbel et al., 2023), as well as allowing dominant assurance providers to shape industry practices in ways that prioritise commercial interests over public accountability (Lemma et al., 2024). While the EU leads in regulatory enforcement, other regions – like the United States – continue to rely primarily on market-driven sustainability reporting, where assurance remains largely voluntary and self-regulated (KPMG, 2024).

The strategic selection of assurance providers remains a contentious issue (Farooq & De Villiers, 2018). The dominance of Big Four accounting firms in the private sector SAA market raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest, particularly for companies that obtain both financial and sustainability assurance from the same provider (Bentley-Goode et al., 2024; Gillet-Monjarret, 2018). Non-accounting firms often face credibility challenges due to the absence of uniform regulatory oversight (Lemma et al., 2024).

This call for papers invites contributions that examine the challenges, opportunities, emerging standardisation and practice diversity trends in SAA. We welcome both theoretical and empirical manuscripts that provide fresh perspectives on the SAA evolving landscape, addressing both the opportunities and challenges.

List of topic areas

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

The role of regulatory frameworks and standards in shaping SAA practices
Ethical considerations and the mitigation of greenwashing through SAA processes
The role of digital technologies in transforming SAA
Methodological advancements in SAA and their practical implications
Influential factors shaping SAA national practices
Stakeholders’ engagement in the SAA process
SAA practices across countries and sectors
The effectiveness of SAA in promoting accountability for SDGs implementation
Challenges and benefits of adopting global assurance standards
The role of SAA providers
The challenging educational skills and capabilities of accounting and auditing professionals
SDGs Auditing in the public sector and role of SAIs across countries.

Guest Editors

Giuseppe Grossi, Kristianstad University – Sweden and Nord University – Norway

Roberto Maglio, University of Naples Federico II – Italy

Adriana Tiron Tudor, Babeş-Bolyai University – Romania

Carolyn Cordery, Victoria University of Wellington – New Zealand

Submissions Information

Submit via ScholarOne

Author Guidelines

Please submit your manuscript for the special issue through the Meditari Accountancy Research online submission system (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/medar), selecting this special issue in step 5 of the submission process.

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”. Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Special Issue Workshop

To help authors develop their manuscripts for submission, a Workshop linked to this special issue will be held on the 9th and 10th October 2025, at the University of Naples “Federico II (Italy).

Authors interested in participating should submit a draft of the full paper to Giuseppe Grossi (giuseppe.grossi@hkr.se) by 12th September 2025.

Please note: papers’ presentation at the Workshop is not a prerequisite for submission, nor does it guarantee acceptance into the Special Issue.