1 April 2005, AccountAbility
Globally, two standards have taken on particular importance in the area of sustainability assurance. The AA1000 Assurance Standard (AA1000AS), launched in March 2003 by AccountAbility; and the IAASB’s International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 , which all professional accounting networks must comply with from January 1st 2005. While these standards have advanced significant and welcome innovations in assurance, differing language, method, development pathways and institutional sources have led to confusion on the part of (assurance) practitioners, organisations seeking assurance and, most of all, the ultimate users, those stakeholders that such organisations seek to assure.
AccountAbility and KPMG Sustainability B.V. in The Netherlands, in collaborating in the preparation and publication of this report, are seeking to overcome this confusion by addressing the core question of whether these two global standards are consistent, complimentary or conflicting based on a detailed analysis, and in what ways they offer similar or different value in the assurance process and its impact on the behaviour of the intended users. Based on the research, Professor George Molenkamp of KPMG Sustainability believes "the combined use of ISAE3000 and AA1000AS would help ensure that sustainability assurance is aligned not only to the needs of our clients but also of their stakeholders”.
This paper is both a contribution towards harmonisation in the field of sustainability assurance, and a call to strengthen productive collaboration between the parties to satisfy demands for professional and broadly credible assurance in the future. It demonstrates that “credible sustainability and non-financial assurance going forward will be grounded in the combined use of AA1000AS and ISAE3000. This complementarity points to the need for harmonisation in the future, effectively integrating the best of stakeholder-based materiality with the best of traditional auditing” . Simon Zadek, CEO AccountAbility
