Article written by a research group of Accounting recognized with the Best Paper Award at the 2022 AFAANZ conference

The research article "Climate Risk Disclosures and Auditor Expertise" was awarded as the best research paper in auditing at the international AFAANZ conference, which was held in Melbourne, Australia in early July 2022. Founded in 1960, the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) conference is the main forum for accounting in the Asia-Pacific region. This year, more than 180 scientific studies were presented at the conference.

The award-winning research paper was written by postgraduate student at the Department of Accounting at the Aalto University School of Business Ly Pham, Professor David Hay (University of Auckland), University Lecturer Antti Miihkinen (University of Turku), and Assistant Professor Emma-Riikka Myllymäki, Associate Professor Lasse Niemi and Assistant Professor Jukka Sihvonen from the Department of Accounting at the School of Business.

‘We are thrilled that our study has been recognized with the Best Paper Award in Auditing at the 2022 AFAANZ conference, kindly sponsored by The Australian National Centre for Audit and Assurance Research (ANCAAR)’, the authors say.

The article examines the impact of an auditor expertise on how well a client company discloses climate risks of its business.

‘Our results show that an auditor's industry expertise and experience in particularly emission-intensive companies or sectors also improves the climate risk reporting of a client company. We have focused our research on the 500 largest Australian companies, as Australia is one of the pioneers in climate risk reporting requirements, and the country has experienced the impacts of climate change already for years. The requirements regarding sustainability reporting will be stricter in the following years also in the European Union and the United States. Our results may also interest Finnish companies, as high-quality environmental reporting opens up new opportunities in the financial markets,’ Ly Pham tells.

Further information:
AFAANZ Conference
https://www.afaanz.org/conference