IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/buseth/v33y2024i4p617-632.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What you see is what you get? Building confidence in ESG disclosures for sustainable finance through external assurance

Author

Listed:
  • Olivier Boiral
  • Marie‐Christine Brotherton
  • David Talbot

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to understand the value of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure assurance in the context of the development of sustainable finance standards and laws. This study is based on an analysis of 188 comment letters submitted by such actors in the context of public consultations on the development of three new sustainable finance initiatives (the CFA Institute, the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK, and the New Zealand parliament). The study shows these actors' nuanced and often quite critical perceptions of the effectiveness of external assurance in preventing greenwashing and their reservations about its mandatory nature. These actors have raised various criticisms, including concerns about the vagueness surrounding verification practices; the lack of expertise available to conduct assurance in a new, specialized, and complex field; the costs of the assurance process, particularly for small players; and the lack of control over the reliability of the ESG data used. This article contributes to several emerging trends in the literature—in particular, research on governance practices to prevent greenwashing, on the institutionalization of sustainable finance standards and laws, and on the role of rational myths in the assurance process for ESG disclosures.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier Boiral & Marie‐Christine Brotherton & David Talbot, 2024. "What you see is what you get? Building confidence in ESG disclosures for sustainable finance through external assurance," Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 617-632, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:buseth:v:33:y:2024:i:4:p:617-632
    DOI: 10.1111/beer.12630
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12630
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/beer.12630?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
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:wly:buseth:v:33:y:2024:i:4:p:617-632. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/26946424 .

    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.