The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) called for submissions on Exposure Draft: Proposed ISSA 5000 General Requirements for Sustainability Assurance Engagements. It aims to serve as a comprehensive, stand-alone, profession neutral standard suitable for any assurance engagement over the reporting of any sustainability topic prepared in accordance with any reporting framework.

Our joint submission with the ACCA supports a global approach to the development of overarching sustainability assurance standards and are supportive of the IAASB as the global body to develop and issue these standards. We believe the goal should be a globally consistent, comparable, and reliable assurance framework for sustainability reporting. We recommend a coordinated approach to the development of sustainability assurance standards to avoid fragmentation and duplicative efforts, undermining consistency and comparability which are critical to the success of global efforts on sustainability matters.

We make particular comments about:

• The preconditions for accepting an engagement
• The assessment of ethics, independence and quality management requirements being ‘at least as demanding’
• The work effort distinction between reasonable and limited assurance, especially internal controls and risk assessments
• Materiality
• The assessment of fraud and errors
• Referring to the work of experts and others
• Group sustainability reporting assurance engagements
• Narrative/qualitative information, including forward-looking information and value chain information.
• Key Sustainability Matters
• Illustrative sustainability assurance reports

National Standard Setters (NSS) also called for comments on the IAASB’s ED. However, in an exception to its policy, the XRB is not presupposing that it is going to automatically adopt ISSA 5000 once issued by the IAASB. The exposure of the standard in New Zealand was to facilitate the XRB’s submission to the IAASB and to inform the XRB's decision on if it adopts the standard. We responded to the NSS jointly with CPA Australia on the:

• AUASB’s Australian-specific questions in its Consultation Paper: Exposure of the IAASB’s Proposed ISSA 5000 General Requirements for Sustainability Assurance Engagements; and Proposed Conforming and Consequential Amendments to Other IAASB Standards.
• XRB’s Consultation Document: Sustainability Assurance.