Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Materiality and external assurance in corporate sustainability reporting: an exploratory study of Europe’s leading commercial property companies

Materiality and external assurance in corporate sustainability reporting: an exploratory study of... PurposeThe aims of this paper are to provide a preliminary examination of the extent to which Europe’s leading commercial property companies are embracing the concept of materiality and commissioning independent external assurance as part of their sustainability reporting processes and to offer some wider reflections on materiality and external assurance in sustainability reporting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins with an introduction to corporate sustainability,an outline of the European property market and of the drivers for, and challenges to, sustainability for property companies and a review of the characteristics of materiality and external assurance. The information on which the paper is based is drawn from the leading European commercial property companies’ corporate web sites.FindingsThe paper reveals that all of Europe’s leading property companies had either reported or provided information on sustainability but that only approximately half of these companies had embraced materiality or commissioned some form of independent external assurance as an integral part of their sustainability reporting processes. In many ways this reduces the reliability and credibility of the leading property companies’ sustainability reports. Looking to the future growing stakeholder pressure may force more of the leading European property companies to embrace materiality and commission external assurance as systematic and integral elements in the sustainability reporting process. Originality/valueThe paper provides an accessible review of the current status of materiality and external assurance amongst Europe’s leading commercial property companies’ sustainability reporting and as such it will interest professionals, practitioners, academics and students interested in the sustainability in the property industry. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of European Real Estate Research Emerald Publishing

Materiality and external assurance in corporate sustainability reporting: an exploratory study of Europe’s leading commercial property companies

Download PDF
25 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/materiality-and-external-assurance-in-corporate-sustainability-8NNVJHCcAo
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1753-9269
DOI
10.1108/JERER-07-2015-0027
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PurposeThe aims of this paper are to provide a preliminary examination of the extent to which Europe’s leading commercial property companies are embracing the concept of materiality and commissioning independent external assurance as part of their sustainability reporting processes and to offer some wider reflections on materiality and external assurance in sustainability reporting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins with an introduction to corporate sustainability,an outline of the European property market and of the drivers for, and challenges to, sustainability for property companies and a review of the characteristics of materiality and external assurance. The information on which the paper is based is drawn from the leading European commercial property companies’ corporate web sites.FindingsThe paper reveals that all of Europe’s leading property companies had either reported or provided information on sustainability but that only approximately half of these companies had embraced materiality or commissioned some form of independent external assurance as an integral part of their sustainability reporting processes. In many ways this reduces the reliability and credibility of the leading property companies’ sustainability reports. Looking to the future growing stakeholder pressure may force more of the leading European property companies to embrace materiality and commission external assurance as systematic and integral elements in the sustainability reporting process. Originality/valueThe paper provides an accessible review of the current status of materiality and external assurance amongst Europe’s leading commercial property companies’ sustainability reporting and as such it will interest professionals, practitioners, academics and students interested in the sustainability in the property industry.

Journal

Journal of European Real Estate Research – Emerald Publishing

Published: Aug 1, 2016

References

  • Embracing the politics of ambiguity: towards a normative theory of sustainability
  • Corporate social responsibility: the good, the bad and the ugly
  • 2The key drivers and barriers to the sustainable development of commercial property in New Zealand
  • Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting and the WWW: increasingly entwined
  • Green agendas and green performance: empirical evidence for Real Estate companies
  • Do responsible Real Estate companies outperform their peers