Sustainability assurance
Businesses today are judged on more than just financial information. Sustainability performance affects reputation, attraction and retention of talent, access to capital and cost of funding, the ability to operate with certain business partners, and ultimately, enterprise value - and stakeholders trust reported information more if it’s assured.
Independent high-quality assurance is increasingly expected by investors, but also by clients, suppliers or lenders who need to report and assure data on their end to end value chain. The global ESG regulatory agenda is evolving to address these needs, and incoming regulations will have an indirect impact even on those businesses that are not directly in scope.
Stakeholders now expect the same high standards for sustainability reporting as they do for financial reporting. Similarly, the global direction of travel is towards integrated reporting and integrated financial audit and non-financial assurance.
The trust gap and the need to enhance credibility is clear given 94% (2022: 87%) of investors think corporate reporting contains at least some greenwashing.[1]
We can help you:
Gain the comfort you and your stakeholders need through third party assurance, wherever you are currently on your journey to financial-grade sustainability reporting.
If this is your goal, you’ll find it invaluable to speak to us early. We can help you make sure your processes and data points are suitable for assurance under the appropriate standards, and help you refine or renegotiate KPIs if this is not the case. We can support you through a range of steps on your assurance readiness journey, increasing efficiency in the process.
Our sustainability assurance offering can take several forms and there is no one size fits all, but we typically help with:
- Assurance related to the KPIs on sustainability-linked financing arrangements, which can help lower the cost of capital.
- Assurance over selected elements within the annual report and / or sustainability report, including performance disclosures, data (e.g. GHG emissions) and KPIs relating to a broad range of environmental, social, economic and governance topics.
- Assurance over adherence to reporting regulations, principles as defined by standards or codes of conduct.
Our locally-led sustainability assurance also draws on experts from across our global network – all with a track record of dealing with complex issues and difficult questions.
The benefits of an integrated approach
We bring together our capabilities and wide experience as financial auditors, with specialist subject matter expertise in ESG/sustainability assurance.
Credibility and investor trust
Our reputation for independence, ethics and quality, is constantly reinforced by meeting the demands of the most rigorous scrutiny
World-class assurance skills
Our well established, robust methodologies are always applied in line with the highest professional standards
Subject matter expertise
We have thousands of professionals across many disciplines – accountants, lawyers, engineers, biologists, economists and more – working around the PwC network providing local and international perspectives, integrated seamlessly into the audit process and assuring complex subject matters
Reporting expertise
Our teams are dedicated to understanding current and proposed reporting standards at both the network and territory level, working closely with the standard-setting bodies
Holistic view of your business
We can take an expert view across your whole organisation, bringing consistency to the assurance of your financial and non-financial information
Repetition, gaps and misalignments minimised
Our integrated approach extends across timelines, communications, processes, systems and controls, greatly reducing request duplication, omissions or misunderstandings
Let’s start with a conversation about where you are and where you should be. We will work with you to determine the level of sustainability assurance that matches the maturity of your reporting, delivering recommendations for getting you to the next level – whether you are preparing for your first limited assurance opinion or looking for reasonable ESG assurance in line with your financial statement audit.
