A proposed vision to overcome the obstacles to external auditors practice in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for environmental auditing in Saudi industrial entities

Abstract

The current study aimed to identify the obstacles that prevent external auditors in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from practicing environmental auditing in Saudi industrial entities, and also aimed to propose a future vision by overcome these obstacles. It was distributed to a sample of external auditors in audit offices in Riyadh city, (157) auditors. The study concluded that there are obstacles that prevent external auditors in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from practicing environmental auditing in industrial entities. The degree of these constraints varied and ranged from very large as in the accounting obstacles, and obstacles related to the auditing profession and external auditors, and major obstacles as in the obstacles related to legislation and environmental regulations, and medium as in the administrative constraints. In the light of these results, the study came out with a number of recommendations, the most prominent of them: Raising awareness among the administrations of Saudi industrial entities of the importance of applying environmental auditing and reporting on it in financial statements and reports, the need to activate environmental legislation and regulations, follow up on the application of industrial entities thereto, and need to benefit from the experiences of developed countries in the field of environmental protection and environmental balance, to preparing a national framework for environmental auditing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.