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The paper aims to review prior literature on the impact of audit quality and climate change reporting on corporate performance. It also aims to offer avenues for future research.

Based on the systematic literature review, bibliometric investigation and forest plot, the authors systematized the scientific knowledge from 183 papers.

Earlier studies either focused on audit quality and corporate performance or discussed the link between climate change and corporate performance. However, the way that audit quality and climate change can together influence corporate performance is yet to be examined. The authors fill the gap by examining the possible link between audit quality and climate change and establishing the influence of it on corporate performance from the existing literature.

Because of the immense importance of the company's contribution to climate change, the research findings will open up avenues for future research. In addition, findings will be useful for world policymakers in strengthening or modifying existing corporate responsibility policies.

The authors explore the behaviour and perspectives of SMEs' owners towards a greener economy and its implications for net zero carbon emissions target.

The authors draw on the mirroring concept and 26 semi-structured interviews with SMEs' owners and managers to provide insights and explore the misalignment between SMEs' actions and perceptions and the technical architecture (and requirements) of achieving net zero carbon emissions in the UK.

The authors find that SMEs lack trust and are sceptical about the government's net zero emissions agenda. The authors also find that lack of understanding and perceived benefits, and supply chain complexities (end-to-end emissions) are the key factors hindering SMEs interests in engaging with better carbon emissions management and environmental management system (EMS). Moreover, pressure from external stakeholders, particularly banks and customers, is a strong driver to draw SMEs more effectively with sustainability and environmental impact disclosure.

The sample is limited to 26 SMEs' owners operating in seven industries. Future research could explore the result in other industries. Further research could also investigate how the sustainability reports produced by SMEs are useful for different user groups' decision-making. This study reinforces the social constructionist approach to advance our understanding of SMEs' actions towards carbon emission management and EMS.

This study shows how government policies and SMEs' interests can be aligned to achieve the net zero carbon emissions target.

This is the first study to examine the perceptions and behaviour of SMEs towards the ongoing pursuit of a greener economy in the UK, including the key factors driving their actions and reasoning.

This paper focuses exclusively on the drivers and consequences of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) adoption in sustainability reports with a particular focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) mechanisms.

The sample includes 63 countries with 4,625 unique firms in these countries and 29,054 firm-year observations between 2002 and 2019. The empirical methodology is logistic and linear regression analyses with country and year fixed effects.

The findings show that CSR committees and executive CSR compensation stimulate firms' GRI adoption. Furthermore, while GRI adoption enhanced firm value in the earlier period of 2002–2010, it weakened firm value in the later period between 2011 and 2019 implying a loss of value relevance. However, the moderating effect of CSR committees and executive CSR compensation on GRI adoption has led to higher firm value in recent times. A more in-depth investigation of polluting versus non-polluting sectors and weak and strong institutional environments reveals both convergence and divergence respectively among these sub-samples. The results are robust to alternative samplings, alternative methodology and endogeneity concerns.

The main limitations of the study are the binary nature of key variables, such as CSR committee, executive CSR compensation and GRI adoption, due to the availability of binary data but not continuous data.

Firms allocate substantial funds for SR and following GRI guidelines; hence, the findings guide them on how to ensure the return on this investment.

Shareholders who particularly pursue socially responsible investment can shape their investment portfolios in firms that engage with sustainability reporting (SR) and GRI adoption practices.

It is not clear in the literature if CSR committees will adopt the GRI for SR because of any incentive. Thus, we examine if the CSR committee and executive CSR compensation can play a direct role in GRI adoption and play a moderating role between GRI adoption and firm value. Moreover, whether GRI adoption and its value relevance might change across periods, sectors (polluting versus non-polluting) and varying institutional environments (investor protection) are addressed in this study.