Regional spatial patterns and influencing factors of environmental auditing for sustainable development: summaries and illuminations from international experiences

Abstract

Environmental auditing (EA) is an efficient tool for supervising environmental governance for the realization of economic and social sustainable development. However, the extent to which EA influences the implementation of environmental protection projects and the dominating socioeconomic factors affecting the implementation of EA are unclear. Due to limited data availability, reports investigating this issue are relatively scarce. Based on annual investigation data from the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions regarding the implementation of world EA projects between 2003 and 2013, this paper performed exploratory spatial data analysis to analyze the spatial correlations of EA projects in 204 countries/regions worldwide. In addition, spatial regression models for the year 2013 were established. The findings suggest that (I) high-high regions were mainly concentrated in North America, Europe, and parts of Latin America. The local implementation of EA had strong spatial interactive effects and was heavily influenced by adjacent regions. An experimental area that has already implemented EA can influence its adjacent regions, and the surrounding regions may learn from such implementation. (II) The spatial regression coefficient of the spatial lag model was 0.323 and highly significant (p < 0.001) compared to the traditional regression model. After considering the spatial variables, the importance of CO 2 emissions decreased by 1.7%, while environmental input and per capita income decreased by 0.7% and 1%, respectively. The influence of these factors on the implementation of EA was driven by the factor of spatial proximity, which was a critical factor influencing the results. (III) In general, socioeconomic development level, environmental protection investment, and other factors, such as CO 2 emission level and degree of social informatization, all increased the efficiency of EA implementation. These conclusions emphasize the important role of EA in helping local governments with environmental management and sustainable development.

Supreme audit institutions in Europe: synergies, institutional transparency, gender equality and sustainability engagement

“…Jansons and Rivza (2017) find similarities amongst the Baltic SAIs. Also, proximity in characteristics amongst Western-Mediterranean countries has been already detected by Gonz alez-D ıaz et al ( 2008), Lu et al (2019) and Reichborn-Kjennerud et al (2019). They also confirm both DiMaggio's and Powell's normative and mimetic isomorphism, given all researched institutions are based on the same regulatory professional framework, either the ISSAIs or adapted ISSAIs, and the MS SAIs all converge towards ECA (Figures 1 and 2).…”

“…Also, proximity in characteristics amongst Western-Mediterranean countries has been already detected by González-Díaz et al. (2008), Lu et al. (2019) and Reichborn-Kjennerud et al.…”

Can Government Environmental Auditing Help to Improve Environmental Quality? Evidence from China

“…Studies on the play of a government audit function are combined with the normative and empirical paradigm, and mainly focus on economic development, government governance, state-owned enterprise (SOE) governance, and so on. On the relationship between government audits and economic development, studies mainly focus on the impact of government audits on the transformation of the economic development mode and economic security, and most of them found that government audits can promote longterm economic development [22][23][24]. Studies about government audits and government governance have found that government audits can enhance government transparency, consolidate the operating efficiency of financial funds, improve government's disclosure of financial information [25][26][27][28], ensure financial security [29,30], and discourage or prevent the corruption of officials [31][32][33][34].…”

Spatiotemporal differences of land use pattern between mountainous areas and basin areas at township scale: A case study of Yuxi City

“…At present, discussing the dynamic change process of land use from the perspective of coupling between human activities and the natural environment, and the dynamic change law of land use (Solomon et al, 2020) as well as its impact on the environment and ecology (Meer and Mishra, 2020;Msofe et al, 2020;Yang et al, 2022) from different levels is the focus of many scholars. However, it should be pointed out that, this kind of research results mainly came from the sociallly and economically developed areas (Guo et al, 2009;Lu et al, 2019), the ecologically environment fragile zones (Zhou et al, 2016;Zhao et al, 2018), and the urban fringe areas (Yang et al, 2011;Cui et al, 2013;Li et al, 2018). But there are relatively few studies on mountainous areas, especially from the perspectives of "mountain" and "basin" sub-regions, which have not attracted enough attention and formed a significant research system.…”