Assurance on Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from

Indonesia

Dina Heriyati

Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Abstract. Assurance on sustainability reporting has emerged as a new practice

and has been used by organization to increase the credibility of its information

content. The objective of this exploratory study is to examine the current practice

and trend of independent assurance on sustainability reporting in Indonesia. This

study specifically analyses content in looking for variations in approach between

assurors by applying content analysis to the assurance statements and note the

differences where appropriate. 43 assurance statement data in 2014-2018 were

collected from GRI Database, CorporateRegister, and company website. This

study found that the practice of adopting independent assurance reports in

Indonesia is relatively low. This study results also indicate differences in the

assurance statement content from different type of assurors. This study identified

accountants, consultants and certification bodies as main group of assurance

providers. This is the first known study to examine assurance practices from the

Indonesia context and provide preliminary insight about sustainability reporting

assurance in Indonesia.

Keywords: Sustainability reporting · Sustainability reporting assurance ·

Content analysis · Indonesia

1 Introduction

Rising trend of sustainability reporting has been studied through numerous global

reports [1-3] and several empirical study [4-5]. High levels of sustainability reporting

in developed countries and in some emerging economies demonstrate that this practice

is worldwide phenomenon [4]. In most countries, such reports yet voluntary and the

disclosure of information are only useful if they are credible. Thus, the call to seek

assurance to ensure the quality of the reports and its information contained are needed

[6-8]. Prior study evidenced that the adoption of assurance voluntarily on the

sustainability reporting is perceived as legitimization strategies [9-10], reducing the

information asymmetry [6], and for regulatory compliance [11].

Several global report showed that the number of assured sustainability reports by

third parties has shown steady increase [3,12]. However, due to the voluntary

requirement and under non-strict regulation practice, there is no restriction on who can

provide the assurance, the methodology and the services or the approach to assurance

[1,11,13-15]. Prior research segregated assurance providers in two broad categories

comprising of accountant and non-accountant [11,16]. While Global Reporting

Initiatives (GRI) divide it into three profession namely accountancy firms, engineering

Heriyati, D.

Assurance on Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Indonesia.

DOI: 10.5220/0009588500002900

In Proceedings of the 20th Malaysia Indonesia International Conference on Economics, Management and Accounting (MIICEMA 2019), pages 79-89

ISBN: 978-989-758-582-1; ISSN: 2655-9064

firms, and professional services firms [8]. In result, various assurance providers with

different competencies will deploy different approaches and each having different

implication and quality [11].

Studied by numerous researchers have examined the various aspects of

sustainability reporting assurance including the current assurance practice and quality

of assurance statements [4,10-11,13,16-19]. Assurance statements were found to be

differences in the content, methodology and implementation of standard resulted in

undermining contribution of assurance service [14,19]. The assurance statements itself

is far from good quality [16]; lack of precision and explanation [18]; lack of credibility

[17] thus the objective to provide confidence to stakholders about the adequacy and

reliability of the report is far [11]. In addition, the current assurance practice seeked by

organisation is not as commitment to transparency and accountability because the

assurance itself as a means for organisation legitimacy, disregarding the report’s

content [18,20]

However, those above studies were largely examined assurance practices in

developed countries, and there is scarce academic research in this area with focus on

developing countries [21]. There is limited understanding on the nature and extent of

these assurance practices in Indonesia, it then seemed interesting to conduct exploratory

study. Indonesia is strong advocate of sustainability development as there is growing

number of company have started to respond to the sustainability issue and disclose

additional non-financial information data such as environmental, social and governance

data [22].

The aim of this exploratory study is to investigate the current practice of assurance

on sustainability reporting of Indonesian listed companies. To accomplish these

objectives, a qualitative content analysis method was performed. This study is expected

to provide better understanding of the current practice in this rising setting as a basis

for comparison and trend analysis. Most of the results of this study will be discussed

descriptively. The remainder of this study is structured as follows: The next section

provides a literature review and method employed. The descriptive results and content

analysis are presented, and then the final section constitutes a discussion and conclusion

based on the results.

2 Literature Review

Sustainability reporting has been used by organization to provide transparency

especially regarding social and environmental performance to their stakeholders [4]. As

organization facing the challenge of providing non-financial information to meet

stakeholders’ demands, a call to ensure the quality of the information contained drive

the need for seeking independent sustainability reporting assurance [4,11]. Globally,

the trend of third party assurance is increasing [3,12]. The real benefits of the assurance

process are still questioned in the current literature [4,24]. However, several studies

argued that this practice would provide several advantages by: improving credibility

and adding values to sustainability report [6].

In contrast with the global report that found steady increase in third-party assurance

on sustainability reporting, Mori et al [4] discovered that there has been slow increase

in the proportion of assured companies in the past decade even there was growing

MIICEMA 2019 - Malaysia Indonesia International Conference on Economics Management and Accounting

number of sustainability report issued by companies. Furthermore, it is argued that this

phenomena is caused by the low value given by organization towards the assurance

practices. It seems because they were not completely see clear benefit of this practices

and were concerned about the cost incurred in undertaking the assurance service [4,21].

However, this practices are not without challenge. Independency of assurance

provider was questioned because it evident that auditee control over the assurance

process [13,17,20]. Transparency is also become challenge [18] and the current

assurance process must first be transparent by detailing information about the work

undertaken, results obtained and providing recommendation, should be explicit and

understandable to users [4].

The assurance practice is relatively new and no universal framework yet. The

frameworks that widely used by assurers for assurance services around the world are

the AA1000 Assurance Standard (AA1000AS) by AccountAbility (Accountability

2011), and the International Audit Assurance Standards Board (IAASB)’s International

Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE3000). It is argued that the combination of

AA1000AS and ISAE3000 is likely to increase the assurance result [23]. These two

frameworks have been used by accountant and non-accountant. However, significant

variations and ambiguities in assurance statement are exist even with the standards

being used [24].

3 Method

The study analyses the assurance statement of companies listed on the Indonesian Stock

Exchange in 2014-2018 publishing stand-alone sustainability report assured by a third

party. In total, 43 assurance statements were investigated over the observation years.

Data gathering process involved collecting assurance statements from GRI Database,

CorporateRegister, and company website.

The assurance statements were analyzed using content analysis, which was widely

used in previous studies on assurance statements in the area of sustainability reporting

[10-11,13,18-19]. Content analysis is seen as appropriate as this study is an exploration

of the assurance statement. This study specifically analyses content in looking for

variations in approach between assurors and note the differences where appropriate as

prior study did [13]. As the assurance practice still in early stage and no universal

guideline, it is expected that the content would be heterogeneous.

4 Result and Discussion

Assurance Rate

Table 1 reveals 242 companies issued stand-alone sustainability reporting during

observation years. Finance (31.40%) was leading the drive towards sustainability

reporting; followed by Mining (14.46%), and Infrastructure, Utilities and

Transportation sectors (14.05%). However the number of assured companies were

insignificant which totaled only 43 company (17.77%) out of 242 company. The mining

and finance industry are the leading industry that seeking external assurance (30.23%).

Assurance on Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Indonesia

This data also indicates that most of company who do report and seeking assurance are

also those with the largest societal and environmental impact.

Table 1. Aggregate statistics per industry.

Number of

sustainability

report

% of

sustainability

report

Number of

assurance

statement

% of

assurance

statement

% of

assurance

statement

per report

Agriculture 18 7.44% 0 0.00% 0.00%

Mining 35 14.46% 13 30.23% 37.14%

Basic Industry and

Chemicals 20 8.26% 3 6.98% 15.00%

Miscellaneous Industry 6 2.48% 0 0.00% 0.00%

Consumer Goods

Industry

11 4.55% 5 11.63% 45.45%

Property, Real Estate and

Building Construction

25 10.33% 4 9.30% 16.00%

Infrastructure, Utilities

and Transportation 34 14.05% 6 13.95% 17.65%

Finance 76 31.40% 12 27.91% 15.79%

Trade Service and

Investment 17 7.02% 0 0.00% 0.00%

Total 242 100% 43 100% 17.77%

Table 2 summarise the trend of sustainability reporting per sectors and its assurance

practices during observation years. Although not yet mandated in Indonesia, there has

been a growing number of voluntary sustainability reporters between 2015 and 2017.

On the other hand, sustainability assurance showed relatively slow trend between 2015

and 2016, although in recent years the level has reached a plateau. However, since 2014,

the proportion of reports with external assurance has tripled.

This study also identified that 5% of the organizations which issued a sustainability

report have included a third party review statement. The third party was engaged to

carry out checking process to ensure the adherence of the report to the GRI standard.

This statement is not an opinion on sustainability report or on the quality of information

contained in the report. It is also worthy to note that, some company in this study

adopted “Mixed Approach” to assurance services. This approach uses different groups

of assurance providers in the same sustainability report (accounting firms and

certification bodies). These two different groups reviews a specific area of the report

and issues a specific statement, and both statements are attached on the organization’s

sustainability report.

MIICEMA 2019 - Malaysia Indonesia International Conference on Economics Management and Accounting

Table 2. Disaggregate statistics per Industry/year.

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Total

SR* SRA** SR SRA SR SRA SR SRA SR SRA SR SRA

Agriculture 3 - 3 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 18 -

Mining 6 1 5 1 7 2 9 4 8 5 35 13

Basic Industry and

Chemicals 4 - 4 - 4 - 4 1 4 2 20 3

Miscellaneous

Industry 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 - 6 -

Consumer Goods

Industry 2 1 2 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 11 5

perty, Real Estate

and Building

Construction 4 - 5 1 5 1 6 1 5 1 25 4

rastructure, Utilities

and Transportation 7 1 6 2 8 2 7 1 6 - 34 6

Finance 14 1 16 1 17 2 15 4 14 4 76 12

Trade Service and

Investment

4 - 3 - 3 - 4 - 3 - 17 -

Total 45 4 45 6 52 9 53 12 47 13 242 43

*SR= Sustainability Reports

**SRA= Sustainability Reports Assurance

Table 2 confirms that the mining industry is consistently seeking independent

assurance followed by finance industry. On the other hand, the remaining industries

inconsistently seeking independent assurance. Basic Industry and Chemicals started

this practice in 2017; from consumer goods sector only one assured company; while

Infrastructure, Utilities and Transportation was stagnant.

Assurance Providers

Accountant and non-accountant shared assurance market proportionately over the study

period, as indicated in Table 3. Accountants are comprised of non-big four and big four

accounting firm. Whereas non-accountants in this study consist of consultant,

certification body and certification body from academic institution. Collectively, this

study found that 51% of the statements issued in the sample were provided by

accounting firms, 35% by consulting firms and 14% by certification bodies. Detail of

the provider is described in Table 4.

Table 3. Aggregate statistics per assurance provider group/year.

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Total

Accountants

4 (100%) 4 (67%) 4 (50%) 5 (42%) 5 (38%) 22 (51%)

Non Accountants

Consultant

- 1 (17%) 3 (38%) 5 (42%) 6 (46%) 15 (35%)

Certification bodies

- 1 (17%) 1 (13%) 2 (17%) 2 (15%) 6 (14%)

Total

4 6 8 12 13 43

Assurance on Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Indonesia

Table 4. Disaggregate statistics per assurance providers/year .

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Total

Accountants

Ernst & Young - -

- 1 1 2 (5%)

Moores Rowland 4 4 4 4 4 20 (47%)

Non Accountants

Consultant Specialists

SGS Indonesia - 1 1 1

- 3 (7%)

SR Asia - - 2 4 6 12 (28%)

Certification bodies

PT BSI Group

Indonesia - 1 1 -

- 2 (5%)

Lloyd's LRQA - -

- 1 1 2 (5%)

PPSBSL

Universitas Brawijaya - -

- 1 1 2 (5%)

Total 4 6 8 12 13 43

Overall, the number of companies that seeking third-party assurance on

sustainability reporting are evolving in time. In 2014, only four companies had an

assurance statement and all four were assured by accountants. The situation changed in

2015 which the number of assurance increase into six and consultant and certification

body emerged as assurance providers. Starting from 2016 up to 2018, variety of

providers from accountant, consultant and certification body commenced to dominate

the assurance market. Of the consultants, SR Asia was by far the largest, with 12

assurance statements. In other hand, Moores Rowland, a non-big four accounting firm,

placed as primary assurance provider surprassing big-four accounting firm.

In financial statement audit, addressee of audit report is intended exclusively to

shareholder. Whereas table 5 reveals that addressees of the assurance statements were

varied. More than half the addressees (58%) were internal parties namely Board of

directors and management. Accountant (51%), Consultant (5%) and Certification Body

(5%) identified “management” as primary user of the report. Stakeholders as

constituents of the report were identified only in 5% cases by consultant. Intriguingly,

33% of the assurors not clearly stated the intended report’s user. Overall, consultant

and certification body recognize broader users (board of directors, management and

stakeholders).

MIICEMA 2019 - Malaysia Indonesia International Conference on Economics Management and Accounting

Table 5. Addressee of the statements.

Acct Consultant Certification Bod

Total

Board of Directors - - 2

(

)

(

)

Management 22 (51%) 2 (5%) 1 (2%) 25 (58%)

Stakeholders - 2

(

)

-- 2

(

)

No Declare

- 11 (26%) 3 (7%) 14 (33%)

Total

In addition, some organizations issued a different type of assurance statement title

provided by a third party review. ISAE 3000 requires that the title should clearly

express the report as an independent assurance report. As seen in table 6, “independent

assurance statement” was the most popular title used (79%). This title was widely used

by accountant (47%), consultant (28%), and certification body (5%). Assurance

statement without putting “independent” term in the report which was “assurance

statement” was ranked in second place (12%), applied by consultant (7%) and

certification body (5%). The least popular terms were “Independent Assurance Opinion

Statement” (5%) and “Independent Limited Assurance Statement” (5%). Interesting to

note that, there was accounting firm that emphasis the level of assurance by placing it

into the title namely “independent Limited Assurance Statement”.

Table 6. Title of the Assurance Statement.

Accountant Consultant Certification Body Total

Independent assurance

Statement 20 (47%) 12 (28%) 2 (5%)

34 (79%)

Assurance Statement

- - 3 (7%) 2 (5%)

5 (12%)

Independent Assurance

Opinion Statement - - - - 2 (5%)

2 (5%)

Independent Limited

Assurance Statement 2 (5%) - - - -

2 (5%)

Total

Table 7. Assurance Methodology.

Accountant Consultant Certification Bod

Total

Verification of data 21 15% 12 9% 4 3% 37 27%

Internal Interviews 21 15% 7 5% 4 3% 32 23%

Evaluation of Report 15 11% 2 1% 3 2% 20 14%

Internal Document Review 16 12% 2 1% 0% 18 13%

Site visit

12 9% 12 9%

Review of systems and/or

rocedures

6 4% 2 1% 8 6%

Preliminar

assessment

32% 3 2%

Others (each below 2%) 4 3 2 9 6%

Total

139

Assurance on Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Indonesia

As seen in table 7, verification of data in report (27%) by means of tracing data

source, follow data trails, were the most assurance methodology employed by assurors,

followed by internal interviews (23%), evaluation of report (14%), internal document

review (13%), site visit(s) (9%), and system/procedure reviews (6%). Accountant

employed the same techniques as in financial audit such as verification of data,

interview, analytical review, recalculation, and review assumption. Consultant utilize

wider methodology include site visit, system/procedure reviews, report evaluation,

preliminary assessment, pre-assurance research and observation. On the other hand,

certification body relatively employed less methodology. Interestingly, no assurance

providers in carrying their work that engage stakeholders in the assurance process.

Assurance Standards and Frameworks

As we can see in Table 8, accountants (47%) were likely to use combination of

AA1000AS and ISAE3000 and the only example of accountant used the ISAE3000 was

Ernst & Young. However, there was Lloyd's LRQA - certification body (5%) that also

used combination of the two standards. Consultants (44%) were likely to standardize

their practice and used AA1000AS as the main framework.

Table 8. Assurance standards and framework applied.

Accountant Consultant Certification Bod

Total

AA1000AS - 15

(

35%

)

(

)

(

44%

)

ISAE3000 2 (5%) - - 2 (5%)

AA1000AS & ISAE3000 20

(

47%

)

-2

(

)

(

51%

)

Total

Assurance Levels and Conclusions

All assurors clearly state the engagement is for limited/moderate assurance. However,

there is no incidence of reasonable assurance. Understanding the level of assurance is

important because it affects the nature, timing and extent of procedures and the level

of confidence of the reports can be expected [24]. Accountant assurors (51%) were

more likely than consultant and certification body (42%) to issue opinion in negative

term, consistent with the limited level of assurance that they provided. For example, as

in Unilever with Moores Rowland as assuror, the opinion declared was “nothing has

come to our attention that causes us to believe the data of the Report has been

materially misstated”. In contrast, consultant (33%) and certification body (9%) issued

opinion in positive terms. For example, SGS Indonesia assured PT ANTAM (Persero)

Tbk stated their opinion as “we are satisfied that the information and data contained

within Sustainability Report 2016 verified is accurate, reliable, and provides a fair and

balanced representation of PT ANTAM (Persero) Tbk sustainability activities in 2016”

Table 9. Assurance conclusion.

Accountant Consultant Certification Body Total

Positive -

(

33%

)

(

)

18 42%

Negative 22 (51%) - 3 (7%) 25 58%

Total

MIICEMA 2019 - Malaysia Indonesia International Conference on Economics Management and Accounting

Aside of concluding the reports, some assurors, primarily consultants and

certificatiom bodies also provide commentries or recommendations. Consultants seems

to focus on adding value to organisation strategic direction [13]. In contrary, accountant

assurors are lacking in providing commentaries or recommendation. This confirms

previous studies that this is could be associated with the issue of the verifier’s

competence [14].

Discussion

Provision of assurance on sustainability reports in Indonesia is considering low (43

companies or 17.77%) with the mining and finance sectors are the leader. This data

confirm prior studiy [25] that found that assurance practice in developing countries is

lagging behind. This could be due to absence of mandatory regulation. This study

would also to highlight that based on analysis of sustainability reports, majority of the

43 companies (18%) that adopted independent assurance stated in the report that they

aware that by seeking independent assurance could increase the credibility and

reliability of the report. In contrast, the majority of the 199 remaining companies (82%)

acknowledge that the use of external assurance by independent third parties could

ensure the quality and reliability of the information presented in the report. However

they claimed that adopting assurance is not a requirement to be “in accordance” with

the GRI guidance. It seems that they prefer to provide internal verification or third party

verification as substitute to external assurance. This could indicates lack of awareness.

In this sense, they perceived that the adherence of the information disclosed to the

guideline is sufficient rather than seeking external assurance.

Reflecting in this phenomena and considering the target in the OJK’s Sustainable

finance roadmap is sustainability reports to become mandatory [26], companies need

to take additional measures to increase the quality of reported information. As

development of sustainability reporting is approaching and so the demand of

accountability of user is elevating, third party assurance is becomingly important. In

other words, the production of the report is not sufficient on its own. Companies need

to think beyond bothering the amount information to be disclosed or complying the

guideline. Otherwise, information credibility is likely to become an issue for companies

that fail to obtain assurance for their reports.

This study identified three main groups of assurors namely accounting firm,

consulting firm, and certification bodies. Consistent with prior studies [10-11],

accountant dominate the assurance market. Accountant from non-big four accounting

firm consistently dominate while assurance provision by non-accountant assurors is

rapidly growing and becoming major competitors in the assurance market.

Accountant adopting a cautious approach and tend to use traditional audit technique

at providing limited assurance levels. In contrast, consultant assurors take a more

evaluative approach even they aim the same limited/moderate level as accountant [13].

Intriguingly, even all the assurors akin to limited level, as much 42% the wording of

the reports was in positive form. It appears that users may not be fully understand the

distinction between the two assurance opinion [24]. However, this practice could lead

to expectation gap among user due to unclear level of testing and assurance provided

[14].

One key concept in sustainability reporting is that of stakeholders. However, none

of the assurors engage stakeholders‘ participation in the assurance process. This is also

reflected in the addresse of the statements. Majority of the as

surance statements are

Assurance on Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Indonesia

purported to internal organisation parties rather than stakeholders and also some reports

not addressed specific constituencies. This implies that the assurance primarily

providing ‘value’ to management as opposed to stakeholders. The reluctance to

address specific stakeholders are evidence by prior study because of managerial control

over the assurance process [13,17].

5 Conclusion

This study provide preliminary insight about current practice and trend of sustainabilty

reports assurance in Indonesia. The assurance on sustainability reporting is a relatively

new practice and such practice in Indonesia is considerably low. This is likely because

of the absence of regulation and low level of awareness. Accountant, Consultant and

Certification body are emerged as assurance providers. This study reveals the

heterogenous in content of assurance statements of each providers in terms of the title

and addresse of statement, methodology employed, assurance framework, and opinion

reached. This study also highlight “Mixed Approach” employed by some organisation

to assurance services.

Interpretation of the findings of this study should be made in light of the following

limitations. First, the nature of this study is exploratory and the results of this study only

discussed descriptively. Second, due to the small sample size, the result of the study

does not reflect the actual practices in Indonesia. Despite the limitations, findings and

conclusions presented in this paper will contribute to future investigations in the

sustainability reporting assurance, particularly in Indonesia. Findings in the study

revealed several issues that require further analysis. This study suggest to investigate

significant factors that would influence companies to undertake assurance and factors

that impede seeking assurance by looking at perspective of organisation. Further

research is also warranted into the decision in regards with the assurance provider

choice.

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Assurance on Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Indonesia