The recent expansion of sustainability studies has reshaped corporate governance and public oversight with direct implications for financial exposure and risk management. In particular, environmental auditing generates decision-useful signals on environmental liabilities, remediation and compliance costs, and budgetary/fiscal risks that affect both corporate financing conditions (e.g., cost of capital) and public finance resilience. This study conducts a comparative examination of environmental auditing practices in Moldova and Bulgaria over 2020–2025, asking how audit mandates, coverage, and disclosure practices inform banks, insurers, investors, and budget holders. Using documents from national legal databases and supervisory portals, we apply descriptive content analysis across structural, substantive, and procedural dimensions, with special attention to financial-risk channels (contingent liabilities, sanction risk, value-for-money and procurement risks). We find that Bulgaria exhibits stronger institutional implementation capacity, while Moldova shows legislative innovation; in both cases, stronger transparency, public participation, and digital audit analytics are needed to quantify fiscal and enterprise-level ESG risks. Overall, this paper positions environmental auditing as a governance lever linking sustainability oversight to finance- and risk-related outcomes, aligning with focus on sustainable finance, ESG disclosure, and governance.

The recent expansion of sustainability studies has reshaped the conceptual and practical foundations of corporate governance. The environmental responsibilities of businesses have not only increased but also become more diversified, requiring new approaches to oversight. Consequently, inspection and auditing mechanisms have gained heightened importance, as international regulatory and supervisory authorities emphasize their role in ensuring long-term corporate sustainability. In this context, the restructuring of environmental auditing emerges as a critical instrument for aligning business responsibilities with sustainability goals and corporate governance culture. This study conducts a comparative examination of environmental auditing practices in Moldova and Bulgaria during the period 2020–2025. The research seeks to deter-mine the current status, scope, and trajectory of both practical initiatives and scholarly contributions in this field. Data were collected from national database platforms specific to Moldova and Bulgaria and analyzed through descriptive content analysis with attention to structural, substantive, and procedural dimensions. The findings reveal that, while Bulgaria demonstrates a higher degree of institutional implementation capacity and Moldova exhibits notable legislative innovation, both countries face pressing needs in enhancing transparency, public participation, and the allocation of targeted resources for rural infrastructure through digital auditing mechanisms.