Audit Committees and the Quality of standalone Sustainability Reporting, Considering the Moderating Role of External Assurance: Evidence from the Global Chemical Industry

Al-Hajaya, K, Ebaa, A-M, Sawan, N, Altarawneh, MS, Eltweri, A and Salem, R (2025) Audit Committees and the Quality of standalone Sustainability Reporting, Considering the Moderating Role of External Assurance: Evidence from the Global Chemical Industry. Business Strategy and the Environment. ISSN 0964-4733

Text Audit Committees and the Quality of standalone Sustainability Reporting, Considering the Moderating Role of External Assurance Evidence from the Global.pdf - Accepted Version Access Restricted until 15 April 2027. Download (529kB)

Abstract

Sustainability reporting and its assurance are increasingly becoming globally mandatory, alongside the issuance of international standards for sustainability assurance aimed at boosting the confidence and trust of investors, regulators and other stakeholders in sustainability-related disclosures. The objective of this paper is to investigate how the interplay between external assurance and an effective audit committee (AC) might influence the quality of GRI standalone sustainability reporting. Using the GRI Standards (2016), a disclosure index with 32 items referring to six quality indicators was developed to assess the quality of the sustainability reports of 104 chemical firms from 36 countries for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022. Our panel regression showed that increased numbers of AC members, along with their higher levels of independence, directly improve the quality of sustainability reporting. However, when external assurance is involved as a moderating variable, sustainability reporting quality is further enhanced by smaller AC size, greater sustainability expertise and a higher proportion of female AC members. This study makes an original contribution by addressing a gap in the literature regarding the impact of AC sustainability expertise, as well as the moderating role of external assurance on the relationship between AC characteristics and the quality of sustainability reports. The research provides a valuable assessment tool for chemical firms to benchmark the quality of their sustainability reporting and offers insights for shaping sustainable business strategies. The findings will help raise awareness among regulators, policymakers and industry stakeholders about the need to incorporate sustainability experts, achieve better gender balance in AC and engage external auditors in the sustainability reporting process.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Al-Hajaya, K., Almahameed, E.A., Sawan, N., Altarawneh, M., Eltweri, A. and Salem, R. (2025), Audit Committees and the Quality of Standalone Sustainability Reporting, Considering the Moderating Role of External Assurance: Evidence From the Global Chemical Industry. Bus Strat Env. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.4297, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.4297. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	3501 Accounting, Auditing and Accountability; 35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services; 3507 Strategy, Management and Organisational Behaviour; 0502 Environmental Science and Management; 1501 Accounting, Auditing and Accountability; 1503 Business and Management; Business & Management; 3501 Accounting, auditing and accountability; 3502 Banking, finance and investment; 3507 Strategy, management and organisational behaviour
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce > HF5001 Business
Divisions:	Liverpool Business School
Publisher:	Wiley
Date of acceptance:	2 April 2025
Date Deposited:	06 May 2025 12:11
Last Modified:	06 May 2025 12:15
DOI or ID number:	10.1002/bse.4297
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/26306

View Item