Promoting sustainability assurance missions in the European Directive regulatory context

Abstract

PurposeThe objective of sustainability assurance (SA) is to give credibility to nonfinancial information (Cheng et al., 2015). In France, certain companies are subject by regulation to the implementation of SA in particular with the transposition of European Directive 2014/95/EU into national law. SA mission is a process by which an independent third-party organization (ITO) assures companies' nonfinancial information. Although this assignment is mostly performed by professional accountants, other providers can perform this assignment (Cohen and Simnett, 2015). In this research, the authors are interested in strategies for legitimizing the SA missions of independent third-party bodies. Assurance providers use their website to promote their missions. How do independent third-party bodies legitimize their assurance mission in a regulatory context relating to European Directive 2014/95/EU?Design/methodology/approachThe authors carried out a discursive analysis of the promotion of SA missions on independent third-party body websites. A content analysis was performed on the collected textual data.FindingsThe results highlight different strategies for promoting the implementation of assurance missions aimed at legitimizing their new skills. Nevertheless, it appears that the providers make very little reference to the quality of nonfinancial information as the objective of SA missions.Research limitations/implicationsThe research made it possible to study the promotion of SA through the websites of ITOs. Nevertheless, it would have been interesting to be able to question the ITOs to study their perceptions on their new SA missions.Practical implicationsThe research enriches the literature on SA, particularly in a regulatory context relating to European Directive 2014/95/EU. It sheds light on the different strategies put in place by the providers appointed by regulations. From a managerial point of view, the study may allow ITOs to adapt their communication to promote extra-financial missions relating to the European Directive and thus to attract new clients. Finally at the institutional and regulatory level, this research highlights the need to put in place a precise framework relating to extra-financial assurance missions. This may also encourage countries not subject to the verification obligation to introduce such an obligation into their national law.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine the promotion of SA practice by providers. In addition, very few studies have looked at this practice in a regulatory context and in particular within the framework of the European directive.