Internal Audit in Projects under the Influence of ESG Aspects with a Focus on Sustainability Reporting (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2024 in the subject Business economics - Banking, Stock Exchanges, Insurance, Accounting, grade: 1,3, University of Western Sydney (Engineering and Design), language: English, abstract: What is the influence of ESG under the focus on sustainability reporting on internal auditing, and how can this be integrated into the auditing of projects? The research question is based on the underlying: hypothesis ESG risks are currently not or inadequately integrated into current project audits. As a result, possible potentials are not leveraged. To prove this hypothesis, the following questions need to be addressed: Are ESG risks related to sustainability reporting reflected in current audit programs? How can ESG criteria being integrated into internal project audits? What conclusion can be drawn for the auditors to support sustainability reporting?

Projects are often exposed to a wide variety of risks. One reason is, that projects are subject to a dynamic environment due to their complexity and project durations. Particularly in the initial project phase, it is often difficult to comprehensively specify projects in terms of their outcome, scope, time, and resources. A high level of complexity often leads to change requests and thus to a modified scope as the project progresses. This is also shown by the "Pulse of the Profession" study, conducted for the tenth time by the Project Management Institute, according to which 52 per cent of projects completed in the last 12 months were affected by changes in the design and scope. Such adaptions usually impact the other factors of the Magic Triangle (longer project duration, higher project costs, or higher resource requirements). They subsequently often impact stakeholder satisfaction with the project and its result or even result in a project failure. Not least because of this context, the Agile Manifest was developed in 2002 to tackle such uncertainties. Today, many companies use agile project management methods or hybrid forms of agile and classic project management when the project can't be sufficiently determined. Whether projects are handled classically, agilely or in a hybrid form, they represent an uncertainty and associated risk factor for companies. This is already reflected in the term "project" definition, which, according to, is characterised by keywords such as novel, complex, dynamic and significant, especially concerning economic success. Therefore, it is the question of how project success and the effectiveness and efficiency of managing projects can be monitored and ensured.