유럽, 미국, IFRS 지속가능성 공시기준(안)의 특징 분석 및 회계학적 고찰 (Characteristics of Sustainability Disclosure Standards of Europe, US, and IFRS, and Their Accounting Implications)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국회계학회
· 수록지 정보 : 회계저널 / 31권 / 4호 / 243 ~ 286페이지
· 저자명 : 홍철규

초록

최근 들어 전 세계적으로 지속가능성 공시 규제가 빠른 속도로 도입되고 있으며, 우리나라도 기준 제정을 서두르고 있다. 향후 지속가능성 공시 규제는 기존 회계공시와 함께 기업 재무보고의 중요한 한 축으로 작용할 전망이다. 본 연구는 유럽과 IFRS가 최근 발표한 지속가능성 공시기준 공개초안과 미국의 관련 규정개정안의 배경을 살펴보고, 그 내용을 회계학적 관점에서 분석한다. 지속가능 성 정보의 주요 관심 주제에는 환경, 사회, 지배구조 등이 포함되며, 주요 보고영역에는 전략, 위험관리, 목표와 실적치 등이 포함된다. 지속가능성 정보는 기존의 회계정보와 달리 비재무적인 정보의 성격을 띠고 있으며, 투자자는 물론 다양한 이해관계자를 주요 정보이용 자로 포함하기도 한다는 특징이 있다. 최근 IFRS가 기준 제정에 주도적으로 참여함에 따라 회계학계에서도 관심이 고조되고 있으나, 이에 대한 학계의 이해도는 높지 않은 실정이다. 이에 따라, 본 연구는 새로운 기준(규정)의 배경과 특징을 비교, 분석하고, 기존 회계기준 과의 관계를 토론하며, 각 기준(규정)이 중요성의 원칙에 대해 견지하고 있는 접근법을 분석하고, 이들 각기 다른 접근법들이 향후 기업들의 지속가능성 공시에 어떤 영향을 미칠지에 대해 비판적으로 고찰한다. 아울러, 향후 지속가능성 공시기준(규정)이 어떻게 전개될지에 대해 전망하고, 우리나라 도입에 대한 시사점을 제시한다. 본 연구는 회계학계의 중요한 관심사로 떠오른 지속가능성 공시 에 관한 사실상 국내 최초의 새로운 탐색적 연구로서 그 의의가 크며, 향후 관련 연구의 활성화에 기여할 것으로 기대된다.

영어초록

Recently the establishment of sustainability disclosure standards(SDS) and the revision of related regulation are being expedited worldwide. South Korea is not an exception. SDS is expected to play an important role in financial and nonfinancial reporting of firms in conjunction with existing accounting disclosure standards. This exploratory study compares and contrasts the characteristics of SDS(rules) of Europe, US, and IFRS, and critically discusses their accounting implications. Firstly, it explores the meaning of the establishment of new standards, given the existing accounting disclosure standards is already in place to dictate the reporting of material information concerning sustainability-related matters. IFRS accounting standards and US GAAP require that the material sustainability-related information shall be reported in financial statements, which include notes to the financial statements. The recent regulatory move toward the establishment of SDS reflects the partial failure(inability) of the accounting disclosure standards to fully enforce the full reporting of sustainability-related information in financial statements. This study compares and discusses the approaches EU, US, and IFRS have taken to address this issue. Secondly, given the partial failure of the existing accounting disclosure standards to induce full disclosure of sustainability-related information, the basic issue on hand is which part of the financial statements could be problematic with regard to the disclosure of sustainability-related information: the mis-presentation of numbers in the financial statements, insufficient information on the numbers in the notes to the financial statements, and/or insufficient information on things material yet not enough to be recognized in financial statements(except notes). This study compares and discusses how the SDS(rules) of EU, US, and IFRS are related to this issue. Thirdly, it compares and contrasts the management latitude embedded in three SDS(rules) in terms of “materiality” in determining the items to be disclosed. This issue is especially important given that the recent worldwide move towards the establishment of SDS is partially rooted on the fact that the principle-based disclosure requirements coupled with “materiality” principle has not been effective in inducing a full disclosure of sustainability-related information, in the context of accounting disclosure standards and/or voluntary sustainability-related information disclosure system. The “materiality” principle present in SDS entails at least three important questions. First is how can the management identify material information from the perspective of investors, in the face of the difficulty of monetizing the effects of the ESG matters, which are mostly forward-looking, uncertain, and soft information? The next related question is how SDS can induce a true and fair presentation of sustainability-related information? The problem arises from the presence of agency problems in general business situations, which makes worse the reporting environment. For example, the low possibility of being caught for mis-reporting of forward-looking soft information would give the management a wrong incentive to distorting the information for the benefit of management itself and/or present investors at the cost of current and/or future investors. Finally, considering the characteristics of sustainability-related information, the assurance of sustainability information becomes largely troublesome. This makes assurance providers more dependent on the management for the application of materiality principle as well as assurance, compared to the assurance of accounting information. Thus a reasonable assurance of sustainability=related information, up to the level applied to the assurance of accounting information, seems almost not possible. Considering all these, it is not easy to imagine how the materiality principle applied to SDS, especially present in IFRS SDS, will work in practice. With regard to the application of materiality principle, EU is the most stringent among three SDS(rules)-setting bodies, in that it specifies disclosure requirements specifically and declares that they are presumed to be material “until proven untrue”. IFRS bestows the most latitude to the management, consistent with its accounting standards, which makes its SDS in reality not significantly different from existing voluntary disclosure standards(frameworks). US rather adopts a mixed approach, focusing on the strict regulation towards more detailed reporting of the effects of climate-related matters on the numbers of the financial statements in notes to the financial statements, while it relies on materiality principle for other soft information subject to a filing requirement. At the time of writing, EU and US regulatory bodies are holding a rather strong position with regard to the exposure drafts of their SDS(rules), suggesting the possibility of their integration in the near future be very low. Above all, EU adopts double materiality principle, which makes EU SDS distinct from US rules and IFRS SDS. This poses a great challenge to the integration of those SDS(rules). Further, their stance concerning the application of materiality principle is also quite different from one another. Apart from the future of three SDS(rules), the regulatory move towards the disclosure of sustainability-related information casts a lot of new research questions in the accounting field and also requires the integrated thinking in accounting, where financial accounting and managerial accounting are traditionally loosely coupled.

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