Emerging Sustainability Roles in the Accounting Profession: An Empirical Analysis of Identities, Responsibilities and Competencies

ABSTRACT Sustainability reporting and assurance requirements are reshaping accountants' professional profiles. Yet empirical evidence on how these accountability demands translate into specific role configurations remains limited. To address this gap, this study draws on role theory to examine how accountants' responsibilities and required competencies have evolved in response to sustainability reporting and assurance requirements, driven by the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), while building on traditional accounting expertise. Using a hybrid (inductive‐deductive) content analysis approach complemented by clustering techniques, we analysed 139 sustainability‐related accounting job advertisements collected in 2024 across 18 European Union countries. The findings reveal the emergence of complex roles and a broad set of competencies, suggesting that organizations are incorporating sustainability work mainly by retaining familiar professional identities while changing the responsibilities and competencies attached to them. The study advances our understanding of the evolving profiles and expertise of accountants in the context of sustainability reporting and assurance and provides insights for researchers, practitioners and professional accountancy organisations.