Johannesburg — WITH sustainability reporting assuming more prominence in the boardroom, the demand for sustainability assurance has increased, says an expert on corporate governance.

The King 3 governance code highlighted reliable sustainability information and tasked the audit committee with establishing a formal process of external assurance on a company's sustainability information.

Jayne Mammatt, head of sustainability services at Ernst & Young, said earlier this week: "There are many similarities between auditing an organisation's financial information and auditing non-financial information like sustainability, as they are both about providing assurance."

Assurance, she said, was a statement intended to inspire confidence. Verification was the act of reviewing, inspecting, testing, auditing or otherwise establishing and documenting whether items, processes, services or documents conformed to specified requirements.

Audits were carried out to ascertain the reliability and validity of financial information and provide an assessment of the internal controls.

"In short, assurance is the outcome. It influences stakeholders' decisions or behaviour; it impacts positively on the organisation. Verification and auditing are a means or a method of achieving that assurance."

External assurance on sustainability reports was critical to management, investors, the government, suppliers, customers, employees and nongovernmental organisations, she said.

Mammatt pointed out that one size did not fit all when it came to sustainability assurance. "Understand what you need, what the stakeholders need, the robustness of the process, the maturity of the sustainable development and reporting processes within the organisation, and the level of the internal assurance processes."

Graham Terry, senior executive of research and strategy at the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, said: "The scope of sustainability reporting can be very broad, with some of the information being compiled outside of the existing business processes - the cost of assurance can be high.

"However, as sustainability information becomes more and more important, there will be increased calls for assurance and companies are going to have to start embedding sustainability practices into daily operations, business processes and strategies."