Greenhouse gas statements reporting and assurance engagements in the context of social responsibilities of businesses: A research of awareness in Turkey

One of the most important global problems of today's world is global warming caused by increasing greenhouse gas emissions and climate changes that occur accordingly. Businesses play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of the responsibilities imposed on countries in line with international regulations. It is important for ensuring a sustainable future that businesses take measures to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions they emit directly or indirectly to the atmosphere, accurately and reliably; calculate and record their emissions, report them and demand assurance for the accuracy of these reports. The reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and verification, which is a very new issue for our country, comes up with the regulations made by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization. With these regulations, approximately half of the greenhouse gas emissions in our country are reported and verified as mandatory. On the other hand, the International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3410 for the assurance of greenhouse gas statements, published by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and applied all over the world, has just been opened to public opinion as a draft text by the Public Oversight Authority (KGK) in Turkey. Although there is no legal obligation for the implementation of ISAE 3410 in Turkey in the current situation, the businesses that are aware of the importance of this issue have voluntarily declared their greenhouse gas emissions in their sustainability reports/integrated annual reports and started to demand assurance for their greenhouse gas statements. The aim of this thesis is to research the awareness in our country regarding the reporting of greenhouse gas statements of businesses and creating assurance regarding these reports. For this purpose, Delphi technique was used in this thesis. In the first phase of the research, which is carried out in three stages, semi-structured questions were administered to sixteen participants working in the field of reporting greenhouse gas emissions and assurance, content analysis was made in line with the answers given, and a 5-point Likert-type questionnaire with 80 items consisting of 11 themes was created. In the second and third stages of the study, this questionnaire was sent to the participants, statistical analyzes were made in line with the answers given, the items of consensus were determined and recommendations were made by evaluating the current situation in our country. Greenhouse gas emissions should be reported in order to leave a sustainable world to future generations, Ministry of Environment and Urbanization and Public Oversight Authority should work together on reporting greenhouse gas statements and assurance engagements and independent auditors should be included in the assurance team for greenhouse gas statements are among the important findings that stand out in the research.