The evolving role of supreme auditing institutions (SAIs) towards enhancing environmental governance

With accelerating environmental degradation, 21st century governments are expected to govern towards more environmentally sustainable outcomes. Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) are increasingly recognised as having a key environmental governance role in holding governments to account by expanding t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Impact assessment and project appraisal 2021-01, Vol.39 (1), p.67-79
Main Authors: Smith, F.H., Retief, F.P., Roos, C., Alberts, R.C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
21st century
Auditing
Audits
Budgets
Environmental accounting
Environmental aspects
environmental assessment follow-up
Environmental auditing
Environmental audits
Environmental degradation
Environmental governance
Environmental policy
Evolution
Governance
Institutions
International organizations
Literature reviews
methodology
processes
Public finance
public sector
supreme audit institutions
Sustainability
Working groups
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Summary:With accelerating environmental degradation, 21st century governments are expected to govern towards more environmentally sustainable outcomes. Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) are increasingly recognised as having a key environmental governance role in holding governments to account by expanding their traditional financial audit mandates beyond the oversight of public-sector budgets and accounts to also include environmental aspects. The aim of this paper is to analyse this evolving environmental governance role of SAIs internationally. The methodology relies on the review of relevant literature and results from survey questionnaires obtained from the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAIs) and their Working Groups for Environmental Auditing (WGEAs). The research results show that there is a steady and meaningful increase in opinion that SAIs legislative mandates should make provision for environmental auditing. In practice an increase in environmental-related audits happened in all three spheres of financial-, compliance- and performance auditing, which supports a shift in emphasis from predominantly financial driven audits.
ISSN:1461-5517
1471-5465
DOI:10.1080/14615517.2020.1834835