This paper explores the factors associated with the voluntary decisions to assure social, environmental and sustainability reports. Since the market for assurance services in this area is in its formative stages, there is a limited understanding of the demand for this emergent non-financial auditing practice, which is evolving rapidly across different countries. Drawing from extant literature in international auditing and environmental accounting, we focus on a set of country-level institutional factors to explain the adoption of sustainability assurances statements among an international panel of 212 Fortune Global 250 companies for the years 1999, 2002 and 2005. Consistently with our expectations, our results provide evidence that companies operating in countries that are more stakeholder-oriented and have a weaker governance enforcement regime are more likely to adopt a sustainability assurance statement. Further, the demand for assurance is higher in countries where sustainable corporate practices are better enabled by market and institutional mechanisms. Our exploratory findings also indicate that the likelihood to choose a large accounting firm as assurance provider increases for companies domiciled in countries that are shareholder-oriented and have a lower level of litigation. We conclude the paper suggesting three directions of research in the area of sustainability assurance that have relevant academic and practical implications.

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This paper examines corporate responses to climate change in relation to the development of reporting mechanisms for greenhouse gases, more specifically carbon disclosure. It first presents some background and context on the evolution of carbon trading and disclosure, and then develops a conceptual framework using theories of global governance, institutional theory and commensuration to understand the role of carbon disclosure in the emerging climate regime. Subsequently, a closer look is taken at carbon disclosure and reporting mechanisms, with a particular focus on the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Our analysis of responses shows that CDP has been successfully using institutional investors to urge firms to disclose extensive information about their climate change activities. However, although response rates in terms of numbers of disclosing firms are impressive and growing, neither the level of carbon disclosure that CDP promotes nor the more detailed carbon accounting provide information that is particularly valuable for investors, NGOs or policy makers at this stage. As a project of commensuration, carbon disclosure has achieved some progress in technical terms, but much less with regard to the cognitive and value dimensions.

In 1998-1999, Prahalad and colleagues introduced the base/bottom of the pyramid (BOP) concept in an article and a working paper. This article’s goal is to answer the following question: What has become of the concept over the decade following its first systematic exposition in 1999? To answer this question, the authors conducted a systematic review of articles on the BOP, identifying 104 articles published in journals or proceedings over a 10-year period (2000-2009). This count excludes books, chapters, and teaching cases. The review shows that the BOP concept evolved dramatically following Prahalad’s original call to multinational enterprises (MNEs). Deemphasizing the role of MNEs over time, published BOP articles portray a more complex picture, with wide variations in terms of BOP contexts, of BOP initiatives, and of impacts of the BOP approach. A simple framework for organizing the reviewed articles helps discuss findings, identify the gaps that still exist in the literature, and suggest directions for future research.

Recent years have seen a rapid increase in accountability pressures on particularly large global companies. The increased call for transparency comes from two different angles, which show some (potential) convergence in terms of topics and audiences: accountability requirements in the context of corporate governance, which expand to staff‐related, ethical aspects; and sustainability reporting that has broadened from environment only to social and financial issues. This article examines to what extent and how current sustainability reporting of Fortune Global 250 companies incorporates corporate governance aspects. Many multinationals, particularly in Europe and Japan, have started to pay attention to board supervision and structuring of sustainability responsibilities, to compliance, ethics and external verification. While detailed disclosures are not yet common, some notable practices can be found. Underlying dilemmas and complexities for managers in dealing with accountability to shareholders and stakeholders, and the role of auditors, are indicated. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Achieving sustainable communication Key features and five specific steps E.B. Harrison Consultant Environmental option assessment Explanation of methodological approach of new life-cycle management tool P. Winsemius, W. Hahn Consultants at McKinsey Marketing green products in the Triad Overview of government policies, green consumerism, marketing and advertising F.L. Simon Consultant & adjunct professor The challenge of sustainable development. Kodak's response Short article on Kodak's environmental strategies and their economic benefits

Against the background of critique on the negative social and environmental implications of globalization, multinational enterprises have become active in reporting on activities undertaken to prevent these ‘externalities’ of international trade and production. This article analyses to what extent and in what form the trend towards non‐financial reporting, which started in the 1990s, has continued in the 21st century. It presents both trend and panel data of the Fortune Global 250 in 1998 and 2001, showing a continued and significant rise of sustainability reporting to approximately half of these multinationals, with some sector and country variations. One‐third of the reports are externally verified. Especially in Europe and Japan, the ‘sustained’ nature of sustainability reporting is accompanied by regulatory requirements and government encouragements. The number of reports that includes social (and sometimes also financial) issues has increased considerably. The article also shows that in these reports the more ‘traditional’ topics, on the environment, corporate philanthropy and employees, receive much more attention than the broader external societal issues. It concludes with a reflection on the extent to which current forms of disclosure might address the concerns raised about multinationals' behaviour. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

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