El mercado de verificación de la información sobre sostenibilidad en Europa
- Beatriz Aibar-Guzmán 1
- Isabel María García-Sánchez 2
- Cristina Aibar-Guzmán 1
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1
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
info
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2
Universidad de Salamanca
info
ISSN: 2695-6896, 2792-8306
Año de publicación: 2024
Número: 496
Páginas: 157-194
Tipo: Artículo
Otras publicaciones en: Revista de Contabilidad y Tributación. CEF
Resumen
La Directiva (UE) 2022/2464 pretende consolidar y perfeccionar los avances en materia de transpa-rencia corporativa logrados por la Directiva (UE) 2014/95 estableciendo un conjunto de iniciativas orientadas a equiparar la información sobre sostenibilidad con la información financiera garanti-zando el acceso digital a datos comparables y fiables por parte de los grupos de interés. En este sentido, establece como requisito obligatorio que la información sobre sostenibilidad presentada por las empresas sea verificada por un profesional independiente, que estará sujeto a requisitos asimilables a los previstos actualmente para los auditores de cuentas. En la idea de que conocer mejor la evolución experimentada por las empresas de la Unión Europea en materia de verificación de información sobre sostenibilidad puede ser de ayuda ante el advenimiento de su carácter obliga-torio, este trabajo presenta el estado actual del mercado de verificación en Europa, determinando las cuotas de mercado de los diferentes proveedores del servicio y las implicaciones que tiene la selección de estos profesionales sobre el desempeño en materia de sostenibilidad a nivel empre-sarial y la neutralidad de la información sobre sostenibilidad divulgada. Los resultados obtenidos para una muestra de 1.687 grandes empresas europeas en el periodo 2010-2022 evidencian que la publicación de la Directiva (UE) 2014/95 ha conllevado un importante desarrollo del mercado de verificación en Europa, especialmente en aquellos países en los que en su transposición se incorporó la obligatoriedad de la contratación de este servicio. Las compañías analizadas apuestan por la contratación de auditores financieros versus consultores, lo que tiene consecuencias importantes para el desempeño en materia de sostenibilidad de las compañías analizadas y la contención de prácticas de greenwashing en sus informes de sostenibilidad.
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