Environmental information in annual reports: a survey of Swedish accountants

This paper presents an investigation of how the new demands for auditing environmental information in the administrative reports are perceived by Swedish accountants. Responses from 123 surveyed authorized public accountants show that they have a positive attitude towards environmental information. The accountants demand additional training and they believe that the amount of environmental information companies present is going to increase in the future, or at least not decrease. The survey results are analyzed from the basis of two perspectives: large auditing firms have better resources to educate, guide and train their employees than small auditing firms; and accountants with experiences in auditing environmental information have more training and a different attitude towards environmental information compared to accountants with no experiences. Whether or not accountants have received any special training differs significantly between accountants with experience from auditing environmental information, and those with none.