The Role Of Internal Auditing In Sustainable Development And Corporate Social Reporting

The Role Of Internal Auditing In Sustainable Development And Corporate Social Reporting

Serpil, Senal

Sustainability means a lot more than just the economic, environmental, and social challenges an organization faces in its everyday and future operations: it means the ethics in these operations, touching on all the lives of those in the organization, its stakeholders, and the planet. The objectives of all sustainable development programs must be measured, and the results are to be reported in and outside the organization. Stakeholders and society need to be assured independently in that such measures are recorded accurately and in timely fashion before being reported. There are opportunities for internal auditing to contribute to its independent and objective assurance services as an auditor as well as a consultant and teacher. Such a contribution can take best-practice internal auditing to a high level of added value. The internal auditor is a vital conduit to the creation of trust. The internal auditor contributes to a number of corporate social reporting (CSR) and sustainability issues by keeping management updated on the aspects of operational and compliance issues, which is part of their core function, as well as brand management audits and through participation in the stakeholder dialogue process. Furthermore, the increasing importance of CSR and sustainability and its impact on risk management bring additional challenges involving the control environment, including the provision and installation of effective management and reporting systems, which will provide clarity and transparency, and therefore trust. The internal auditor has an integral role in determining the materiality of the content of the CSR and sustainability report. This is a responsibility that can only increase with the burgeoning of CSR and sustainability reports, both in volume and size of content. Today, internal audit function that is the most important factor in creating sustainable value to improve the value of the company and firm performance is important to correct implementation and to be sustainable. Therefore, enterprises should assign enough importance to internal auditing and should pay attention to create a sustainable audit system. The aim of this study is to investigate the system of sustainable internal audit which is the essential element for sustainable development and corporate social reporting. Keywords: Corporate Social Reporting, Internal Auditing, Sustainable Development, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainable Management Systems.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2012-05-31

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