Sustainability and ESG Assurance Service

Sustainability reporting and ESG related disclosures are the key focus for businesses as regulators, investors, consumers and other stakeholders demand greater transparency and continuous improvement of sustainability performance. Gathering high quality and reliable raw data from the organisational and operational level to the supply chain and product level require a consolidated effort by all involved. The challenges arise from the complexity of data source ownership along the value chain, the lack of harmonised reporting frameworks and the continuously evolving landscape of sustainability and ESG reporting requirements.

In this context, companies are increasingly seeking independent 3rd party assurance to their sustainability reporting and ESG related disclosures to increase stakeholder confidence. Also, in certain regions and countries such as the EU, Assurance of ESG related disclosure is now a compliance obligation for qualifying companies.

ESG disclosure and sustainability report assurance is a verification process to evaluate and validate an organization's sustainability and ESG related strategic alignment, compliance, governance, data, implementation, performance and stakeholder impact against accepted standards, frameworks or protocols. The assurance process strengthened by our robust internal standards, guidelines and operating procedure of a assurance service provider, aims to ensure relevance, accuracy, reliability and completeness of sustainability related information. It also supports to check if the reporting is in accordance with selected or applicable disclosure frameworks and regulations, as well as the materiality, adequacy, validity of an organization's sustainability strategy, implementation, monitoring and progress.

As your trusted sustainability solution provider, TÜV Rheinland has built a global team of Sustainability and ESG assurance practitioners. We provide independent 3rd party assurance and verification services for sustainability reporting and ESG claims that cover major reporting standards and frameworks including:

• Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRSs)
• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards
• United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG’s)
• Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards
• Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Framework
• Textile Sector specific: Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) Higg Index Brand and Retail Module (BRM)

An organisation can decide to obtain assurance for their ESG / Sustainability disclosures against various standards and frameworks. Also, an organisation, depending on their stakeholder requirements can decide to obtain assurance according strict principles, protocols or assurance methodologies. Depending on these varying needs, our assurance practitioners apply a variety of globally accepted methodologies , such as ISAE3000, AA1000 (AS), AA1000 (SES) and ISO 14064-3 (GHG).

Independent and objective assurance to sustainability reporting and ESG disclosures can add value to the business in many ways.

• Assurance helps companies comply with increasingly stringent regulations introduced by governments, regional corporations, to ensure sustainable business practice and transparency.
• Verified data ensures accuracy, reliability and comparability; it helps organisations generate confidence and credibility in reporting and safeguard stakeholder and consumer trust.
• Assurance process engages various data owners, managers, senior management and even external stakeholders and thus helps identify risks, hotspots and gaps in policies, strategy, compliance, governance, implementation, monitoring and controls.
• Improvement recommendations provided by an independent 3rd party helps organisations to optimise the process and continuously improve.
• By providing assurance of sustainability and ESG disclosure, businesses can position for better risk management, gain competitive advantages and overall value creation.

Pre- Assurance / Assurance Readiness Assessment

Also, we can include a pre-assurance phase to assurance engagements as per your requirements. During the pre-assurance phase, a sample or limited number of data sets, KPI’s, processes or procedures can be assessed for their assurance worthiness and an interim internal management report issued. This would also inform the internal cross functional teams, data owners, managers and internal audit teams, what they can expect when they take part in the actual assurance engagement.