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This new report: “The State of Play in Sustainability Assurance” from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the AICPA reveals the results of a robust evaluation of sustainability disclosure and assurance practices among the 1,400 largest companies in 22 jurisdictions worldwide. US data is based on an analysis of the largest 100 companies by market cap as of March 22, 2021.

Disclosure

• Nearly all US companies (99%) disclosed ESG data; this compares to 91% worldwide. Of the US companies, 96% disclosed information in a sustainability or similar report rather than in their annual or an integrated report:

• Nearly 70% of companies globally used more than one framework/standard for reporting – most commonly the GRI and UN SDGs. Nearly 60% of US companies used the GRI standards; 48% used the SASB standards; 48% used the UN SDGs; and 31% used the TCFD framework:

Assurance

• More than 70% of US companies (much higher than the worldwide average) that provided ESG disclosure obtained assurance over at least some of their ESG data. The report notes that most assurance reports globally don’t cover all of the reported ESG information.
• Just over 10% of US companies obtained assurance from an audit firm; the balance used other service providers:

The report includes global data on reporting and assurance that allows for easy jurisdictional comparisons, as well as an industry-specific analysis and discrete jurisdiction profiles.

See IFAC’s release and global benchmarking map; these articles: “Low-quality assurance of ESG reports pose stability risk: IFAC” (CFO Dive), “ESG assurance: An emerging opportunity for CPAs” (Journal of Accountancy), and “Sustainability assurance seen as full of inconsistencies” (Accounting Today); our recent report: “ESG Information: External Assurance Primer”; and additional resources on our Climate Disclosure and Sustainability pages.

                                  This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!