Abstract The research has been conducted to identify the factors that lead to the adoption of sustainability reporting standards by multinational companies. This study finds that external assurance and assurance quality have significant positive impact on the adoption of sustainability reporting standards. This study further reveals that government effectiveness and press freedom lead to a greater adoption of sustainability standards. This study shows a set of company level and country level factors driving the adoption of sustainability standards at the global level. However, this study could not find significant impacts of industry type (financial) and other institutional factors, such as voice and accountability, environmental performance, and regulatory quality on sustainability standards. Keywords: sustainability reporting, external assurance, institutional contexts