Gaining independent assurance of your company’s corporate responsibility or sustainability report is vital to securing the trust of your stakeholders.

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There is an increasing demand from stakeholders for companies and organizations to minimize and take responsibility for the impact of their activities by adopting environmental, social and governance goals. Sustainability reporting is the disclosure of the effectiveness of the ESG strategies pursued by a company or organization.

A Sustainability Report verified by an independent recognized third party may be a requirement of potential investors or other stakeholders in the supply chain. Current business practice usually sees a sustainability Report included as part of an organization’s financial reporting.

A solid sustainability strategy gives you a framework for managing your most significant social, environmental and broader economic issues. It sets out your vision, principles and policies and defines your approach to governance, stakeholder engagement and reporting.

Sustainability Report Assurance instils confidence that what you are saying about your performance has been subject to proper scrutiny. At DNV, we can offer a spectrum of report assurance services from those engagements which focus on verification of data, to more sophisticated assignments which enable us to offer more assurance, for example, over how the reporting responds to stakeholder needs, and is integrated with other company reporting.

Benefits

Assistance in developing a sustainability strategy will result in lower risks, new revenue streams, better customer relationships and improved competitive positioning. Key benefits are:

• Identifying key areas of risk and opportunity;
• Ensuring greater trust among stakeholders;
• Increasing attractiveness to investors;
• Increasing enthusiasm, awareness and alignment across your organization.

How it works

Our assurance process is a robust and credible approach founded on best practice. Guided by materiality, we carry out a rigorous review of data and claims in the report and examine management arrangements, processes and data-collection systems.

In our assurance statement, and in our direct feedback to you, we offer constructive and insightful opinion. Where appropriate, we can engage stakeholders in the assurance process, for example by interviewing opinion formers or convening a stakeholder advisory panel.

In addition to using international recognized assurance standards, DNV can also perform sustainability assurance using its proprietary tool, the VeriSustain™ protocol. This protocol draws on good practice across recognised sustainability standards to align with the requirements of GRI, AA1000AS, CDP and ISAE3000. This means that all of our assurance work is conducted consistently across the globe, with detailed procedures and testing protocols offering a rigorous approach to the quality of our work.

How we can support

DNV has more than 150 years of experience helping companies build trust in their operations, products and supply chains. By combining assurance and blockchain-based solutions, we can provide verification, certification, supply chain and circular ecosystem services to verify data and authenticate your product and service claims, as well.