Sustainability Assurance

The IAASB is currently working on a project to develop Proposed International Standard on Sustainability Assurance (ISSA) 5000, General Requirements for Sustainability Assurance Engagements.

Proposed ISSA 5000 is a stand-alone overarching standard for assurance on sustainability reporting and is:

• Responsive to the public interest need for a timely standard that supports the consistent performance of quality sustainability assurance engagements;
• Suitable across all sustainability topics, information disclosed about those topics, and reporting frameworks; and
• Implementable by all assurance practitioners (i.e., professional accountants and other professionals performing assurance engagements).

Proposed ISSA 5000 is principles-based and addresses:

• Both limited assurance and reasonable assurance;
• The conduct of an assurance engagement in its entirety; and
• Areas of sustainability assurance engagements where priority challenges have been identified, and more specificity is required.

The development of proposed ISSA 5000 has built upon existing IAASB Standards and guidance that deal with sustainability more broadly, including:

• ISAE 3000 (Revised), Assurance Engagements Other Than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information;
• ISAE 3410, Assurance Engagements on Greenhouse Gas Statements; and
• The package of non-authoritative guidance on sustainability and other extended external reporting assurance engagements (see the EER Project Page)

The IAASB envisages that a suite of standards for assurance on sustainability reporting that provide more specificity than an overarching standard will likely need to be developed over time. The IAASB will explore the further development of the suite of assurance standards on sustainability reporting as part of its future standard-setting activities.

Please also visit the IAASB’s dedicated Focus Area Page for Sustainability Assurance, which brings together all existing IAASB content for assurance on sustainability reporting and other forms of extended external reporting.

Project Timeline

The following table sets out the project timeline. Please note that these are current targeted milestones and may change as the work in this area progresses.

Implementation Support Materials

The IAASB is developing implementation support materials and guidance to support practitioners with the implementation and application of proposed ISSA 5000. The following sets out the planned implementation support materials and the planned timing for their publication:

Current Status of the Project

Refer to the IAASB's "Latest on Our Projects" page for the latest status of the Assurance on Sustainability project.   

Task Force Information

 IAASB Staff Contacts

• Claire Grayston
• Dan Montgomery
• Fadi Mansour
• Thokozani Nkosi

Task Force Members

• Josephine Jackson (Chair)
• Wolf Bohm
• Warren Maroun
• Neil Morris
• Chrystelle Richard

Drafting Team

• Johanna Field
• Susan Jones
• Jamie Shannon

Reference Groups

• Establishment of the IAASB's Sustainability Assurance Reference Groups
• Members of the Sustainability Assurance Reference Groups