Discussion points from Ethical Requirements for Assurance over Sustainability Reporting

Special thanks to the External Reporting Board & Misha Pieters for hosting the roundtable korero on Ethical Requirements for Assurance over Sustainability Reporting.

It was great to represent Mosaic and it was equally great to see representation from a cross section of industry & professions, especially those from non-financial sectors and from a non-accounting background. Having board members scattered amongst the participants was also a refreshing experience. Well done!

Bringing diversity to any code development is important (and more so in sustainability reporting assurance where group of experts are more diverse & the industry is in rapid growth phase).

Key discussion points (which was split into 2 sections: Independence & Ethical considerations):

• Independence, Ethics and Experts (SMEs) are pillar of the proposed exposure draft (ED)
• Balancing profession agnostic code (i.e. a sustainable reporting assurance code that is more accessible to non-accountants & can easily relate to and use).- Does provider of audit assurance engagement need to be as 'independent' as financial auditor?
• To avoid arbitrage, greenwashing, and to ensure similar level of rigor - Yes.
• Should there be a benchmarking process for other standards with similar ethical and competence requirements that aims to achieve the same ethical outcomes?
• In context of using experts, when should a threshold test for independence v objectivity be considered?

I am looking forward to the ED to be released in January 2024 (it's on my summer reading list).

A pleasant, unexpected surprise was catching up the person who introduced me to the world of auditing (decades ago!), my mentor & NZ Auditing & Assurance Standards Board member, Professor David Hay. Forever grateful!