Expertise and the construction of relevance: Accountants and environmental audit

Abstract

Some accountants have begun to compete for work in the environmental auditing field and this essay describes the strategies by which they have attempted to represent themselves as relevant experts. A shift in regulatory style has stimulated experimentation with new instruments of control, including voluntary schemes for environmental auditing which emphasise a management control system. Subsequent attempts to define the relevant knowledge base of environmental auditing and to accredit verifiers have created a stage on which accountants can promote their claims. The essay draws attention to the construction of an overlap between the skills required for financial and environmental auditing. In turn, this strategy requires that other forms of expertise, such as in the field of the applied sciences, must be subordinated within an audit process which is controlled by the accountant.