Why do you think there is demand for sustainability reporting and assurance services? What are some of the challenges that assurance providers face in conducting sustainability assurance engagements? NB: I got some information from slides, and so you can rephrase them to answer this question

Challenged faced in sustainability assurance:

No universally accepted standard (with no common terminology), compounded by diverse range of subject matter

Existing standards provide broad principles but of limited assistance within specific subject matter context

How would key underlying concepts e.g. level of assurance, risk, materiality, audit evidence, etc. be applied to non-financial assurance engagements?

Mixtures of competencies required and mobilisation of multi-disciplinary teams

The case of sustainability assurance :

International growth in companies publishing separate sustainability reports, accompanied by increase in these reports being externally assured (largely voluntary undertaking)

Drivers include:

Enhanced credibility of information (to internal and external audience)

Risk minimisation

Regulatory compliance

Reputational considerations

Facilitate internal change proce

Providers of sustainability assurance :

External providers

Accounting (predominantly Big-4) and non-accounting providers (specialist environmental/niche providers)

Discernible divergence in approach

Accountants (dominant provider in international market): Cautious, limited approach ; focused on techniques and output

Non-accountants: Evaluative approach with higher levels of assurance ; focused on changing clients practices to make them more sustainable

Internal providers

Increasing scope and expectations given unique position of function

Interface between internal and external sustainability assurance likely to received increased attention (combined assurance model)