Global State of Play for Extended Sustainability Disclosures, Performance, and Assurance—Insights From Cross‐Country Benchmarking

Abstract

We compile a novel set of country benchmark sub‐samples representing advanced, emerging, large, and APAC countries to understand the impact of country‐ and company‐specific governance factors on ESG scores worldwide. We find that companies in advanced and large countries demonstrate the highest mean performance and the lowest greenwashing scores, whereas emerging and APAC countries have the lowest ESG performance and the highest greenwashing scores. APAC and advanced countries have the highest ESG disclosure scores. In APAC, this high disclosure is associated with low ESG performance and high greenwashing scores, while for advanced countries, high disclosure is associated with high ESG performance and low greenwashing scores, suggesting that the quantity of ESG disclosure does not necessarily reflect quality. Australia's profile is different from the other APAC and advanced countries with the highest mean ESG performance, lowest ESG disclosure, and lowest greenwashing scores, relative to all country sub‐samples. Large and advanced countries (including Australia) have higher mean levels of sustainability assurance, which is associated with high levels of disclosure in advanced countries, lower levels of disclosure in large countries, and the lowest levels in Australia. This suggests that sustainability assurance providers in large countries and Australia may focus on quality rather than quantity of disclosure.