Assurance

 

Assurance is an evaluation method that uses a specified set of principles and standards to assess the quality of a company’s reports, and its underlying systems and processes.

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What is the AA1000 Assurance Standard?

The AA1000 Assurance Standard is the generally applicable standard for assessing, validating, and strengthening the credibility of your organisation’s sustainability reporting.

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Key Characteristics

The AA1000 standard includes specific reference to the areas of

• Materiality: That the issues reported on are material to that company and its stakeholders, and are appropriate and relevant to the sustainability reporting of that company.

• Completeness: That the reporting organisation fully understand the issues they are reporting on in terms of its own performance and its stakeholders views.

• Responsiveness: The extent to which a company engages with and responds to its stakeholders, and how this is reflected in the way the report is structured and its future aims and objectives.

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The standard also requires that the assuring organisation discloses both its competencies and its relationship to the reporting organisation.

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The Assurance Standard was devised by Accountability – the institute for social and ethical accountability, whose mission is to promote accountability for sustainable development.

For further information visit www.accountability.org

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Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

Collins McHugh also produce or assure reports against the Global Reporting Initiative Framework