This annual report: “The State of Play: Sustainability Disclosure and Assurance 2019 – 2022 - Trends & Analysis” from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), the AICPA, and CIMA, reveals the results of a robust evaluation of sustainability disclosure and assurance practices among the 1,400 largest companies in 22 jurisdictions worldwide. US data is based on an analysis of the largest 100 companies by market cap as of March 22, 2023 (i.e., reporting year 2022).
Disclosure
- US companies continued to rely primarily on standalone sustainability reports for their ESG disclosure, with just 5% incorporating such information into their annual report and 1% using an integrated report.
Assurance (For purposes of these statistics below, note that assurance over even one ESG metric counts as having obtained assurance.)
- Nearly 88% of US companies obtained assurance over some reported ESG information in 2022, compared to an average of about 69% worldwide.
- Globally and in the US, 82% of assurance reports were limited in 2022. The balance in the US were represented by reasonable, moderate, and other (in descending order) assurance. Across all jurisdictions, assurance was most commonly obtained for GHG metrics (98%) (approximately 75% for Scopes 1, 2, and 3, and 25% for Scopes 1 and 2, for US companies).
- US companies obtained assurance largely from service providers other than audit firms in 2022, with audit firms comprising 23% compared to a worldwide average of 58%, illustrating vast differences in the type of service provider commonly used across regions.
- Among those US companies that obtained assurance from an audit firm, 93% used their primary financial audit firm compared to 73% worldwide.
- ESG-assured information lagged companies’ annual reports by 118 days on average in the US, which exceeds the number of days in all other jurisdictions covered.
- 93% of US companies used SASB and multiple frameworks/standards for reporting, followed by the TCFD at 88%.