Exploring the accounting community perspective on the “Consultation Paper on Sustainability Reporting

The IFRS Foundation published a paper, for public consultation until December \r\n31, 2020, called the “Consultation Paper on Sustainability Reporting” (CPSR), \r\naimed at assessing the demand for sustainability reporting standards. The IFRS \r\nFoundation aims at defining to what extent the consultation could contribute to the \r\ndevelopment of such standards. The debate on standards for sustainability disclosure \r\nand reporting is discussed at academic and practitioner levels. This paper focuses on \r\nthe accounting community’s comment letters sent for the above-cited consultation \r\npaper. The aim of this work is to understand the accounting community members’ \r\npositions on various issues concerning the CPSR, from the academics’ and practi\r\ntioners’ perspectives (audit firms, accountancy bodies, consultants/accounting \r\nfirms). A total of 91 comment letters have been analyzed in this paper. Both quali\r\ntative (manual content analysis) and quantitative methods were used and a statistical \r\nanalysis was performed to validate the data. The findings reveal a positive and prag\r\nmatic approach by the accounting and the audit firms, as well as by the accountancy \r\nbodies, towards a global common set of standards for the sustainability disclosure \r\nled by the IFRS Foundation. In contrast, the position of the academics seems more \r\ncritical, in particular as concerns their disagreement on the scope of the climate\r\nrelated financial disclosure and risks.