1. Glen L. Gray (California State University, Northridge) Kyunghee Yoon (Rutgers University) Won Gyun No (Rutgers University) Peter Roebuck (University Of New South Wales)

2.  According to the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute (IRRCI), “499 companies [from the S&P 500] made at least one sustainability ‐ related disclosure.”  Green IT is a part of sustainability activities.  According to Murugesan (2008), green IT is defined as: “designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated subsystems – such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking and communications systems – efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment.”

3. http://www.adidas-group.com/en/sustainability/planet/green-company/#/green-it/

4. http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/dell-environment-energy-efficiency?s=corp

5. Environmental compliance Organizations Stakeholders’ increasing demand Expand Economic considerations Expanding regulations Increasing pressures Increasingly obliged to have strategies and operations that consider environmental issues and impact of their activities Need for assurance about environmental activities Internal auditors should be widely involved in their organization’s environmental compliance activities. A view of internal auditors as organization’s control experts and objective assurance provider Normative (what ought to be) view of the role of internal auditor in environmental compliance activities Organizations must: Identify and assess the risk associated with organizational activities Identify and assess the risk associated with organizational activities Develop appropriate governance Develop appropriate governance Implement appropriate controls to mitigate risks Implement appropriate controls to mitigate risks Confirm controls are complied with Confirm controls are complied with

6.  Gray, No, and Miller (2014)  Reported that internal auditors in the United States and Canada were only minimally involved in their organizations sustainability and green IT activities.  Found that any involvement was traditional internal audit auditing roles – not facilitator or consultant roles.  Uncovered that auditors believe they should be involved green IT actively.  Then, why is there a gap between auditor’s perceived role and their current involvement in green IT?

7.  The objective of this current paper is to explore whether internal auditors’ involvement in green IT is different in Australia compared to the United States and Canada.  We compare the attitudes and activities of Australian internal auditors regarding the green IT component of sustainability to Canadian and U.S. internal auditors reported in Gray, No, and Miller (2014).

8.  Our findings would provide strong policy implications for the IIA.  Several studies conducted in the IIA North America jurisdiction consistently indicate that internal auditors have minimal involvement in IT-related activities and that when internal auditors are involved in IT, it was almost executively in an assurance role.  The IIA has been encouraging their member to proactively expand their value-added services outside of financial assurance services, so our study indicates that those encouragements seems to be hitting a wall and more research is need to identify those inhibitors.

9.  Each country establishes and enforces laws and regulations differently.  This difference in enforcement mechanisms influences the society differently (La Porta et al., 2006).  Establishing mandatory sustainability reporting tends to motivate management to take social responsibility in their managerial practices (Ioannou and Serafeim, 2014).

10. CountryGenericSector specificThematic U.S.N/A  Dodd-Frank Act  Pres. Exec. Order 13514  EPA GHG Reporting Rule  EEO-1Survey  Sarbanes-Oxley Act  CAA & CWA  Toxic Release Inventory  California Transp.in Supply Chains Act CanadaN/A  Public Acc. Statements  GHG Program  The National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI)  Env. Rep. Guidance  TSX Australia  Corporation Act  Operating Financial Review (OFR)  ASX Listing Rules  Financial Services Reform Act (FSRA)  Clean Energy Act  Nat. GHG & Energy Rep.  Energy Efficiency Act  Nat. Pollutant Inventory

11.  Corporate Act requires that on an Annual Directors’ Report, firm states if its business is connected to any substantial environmental regulations under the law and illustrate its specific performance associated with these environmental regulations.  Guide 247 on Operating and Financial Review (OFR), requires listed firms to include a discussion of environmental and other sustainability risks where those risks could affect their financial performance.  Under ASX Listing Rules companies are required to describe whether the entity has any substantial exposure to environmental risk, and if it does, how it manages those risks.

12. An organization’s environmental strategies are influenced by various environmental motivating forces, including organizational, regulatory-market, socio-cultural, ecological, and technological forces (e.g., Bansal 2002; Bansal and Roth 2000). Jenkin, Webster, and McShane (2011)

13.  H1: Internal auditors’ current involvement in green IT activities are greater in Australia than in U.S. and Canada.  H2: Internal auditors’ perceived roles what they should be involved in green IT activities are greater in Australia than in U.S. and Canada.  H3: Internal auditors’ current involvement is aligned with their perceived roles what they should be involved in green IT activities.  H4: The magnitude of alignment between internal auditors’ current involvement and their perceived roles what they should be involved in green IT activities are greater in Australia than in U.S. and Canada.

14.  Web-based survey  38 questions were designed.  Questions about internal auditors’ current involvement, their perceived roles in green IT activities, organizations’ green IT strategies and activities Participants771 (3.1% response rate) Incomplete data224 Invalid participants (i.e. not from targeted countries) 95 Redundant organizations30 Total422

18. Current Involvement in Green IT Perceived Role in Green IT

19. Current Involvement in Green IT Perceived Role in Green IT

20. Current Involvement in Green IT Perceived Role in Green IT

21. Current Involvement in Green IT Perceived Role in Green IT

22. H1: Internal auditors’ current involvement in green IT activities are greater in Australia than in U.S. and Canada.

23. H2: Internal auditors’ perceived roles what they should be involved in green IT activities are greater in Australia than in U.S. and Canada.

24. H3: Internal auditors’ current involvement is aligned with their perceived roles what they should be involved in green IT activities.

25. H4: The magnitude of alignment between internal auditors’ current involvement and their perceived roles what they should be involved in green IT activities are greater in Australia than in U.S. and Canada.

26.  Although Australia, Canada, and the United States have a similar English- speaking, Anglo-Saxon, common law history, these countries would develop different attitudes about the environmental issues, which in turn would influence the evolution of government regulations.  However, only with a few exceptions, we generally found that the attitudes and activities were not statistically significant between the three countries. In those cases where there were statistical differences the differences were not very material.  Specifically, the internal auditors’ current involvements in green IT were very low and not statistically different between the three countries.  Response rate from all three countries was low, and there is always a concern about the non-response bias.  In terms of future research, it would be particularly interesting to conduct similar surveys in non-Anglo-Saxon countries and civil law (vs. common law) countries.

28. “Internal auditors provide the third line of defense in assessing and reporting on internal control and recommending corrective actions or enhancements for management consideration and implementation; their position and compensation are separate and distinct of the business areas they review.” (COSO 2013, p124) According to the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA 2010), internal auditors need to play three broad roles to support environmental compliance activities  Auditor role (evaluate an organization’s environmental activities)  Facilitator role (facilitate environmental control self-assessments), and  Consultant role (consult on designing and implementing an organization’s environmental activities and controls).

29.  Internal auditors claimed that management would place a higher value on improving efficiency of operational activities because the economic benefits were more visible than for financial reporting compliance activities.  Gray (2004; 2008) indicated that the status and importance of internal auditors in U.S. increased significantly after the implementation of SOX.  Although IIARF have been producing publications encouraging value- added, proactive activities, studies of the members of IIA U.S. jurisdiction have been discouraging.

30.  The environmental strategies of the respondents’ organizations. Overall, 153 respondents (36.3%) stated that their organizations did not have a formal written statement covering environmental sustainability strategies.  Overall, 305 organizations (85.4%) at least sometimes configured desktops to automatically enter sleep mode when inactive.

31.  Jenkin et al. (2011) argue that the success of green IT practices largely determined by the degree to which its organizations and employees have adopted and implemented its green IT strategies and practices.  Internal auditors’ current involvement in green IT activities is not aligned with their perceived potential roles in green IT activities (Gray et al., 2014).  We argue that the nationality of companies results in differences among companies in terms of environmental and social strategies and activities