ESG Reporting & Disclosure

ESG AssuranceAssurance

ESG Assurance services at T3 revolve around ensuring transparency and accuracy in ESG reporting, providing tailored solutions that resonate with your unique ESG journey and satisfy numerous stakeholders, including investors and regulatory authorities.

Overview of Topic

ESG Assurance is gaining increasing traction, with 83% of consumers, as per PwC 2021 survey, believing that companies should actively shape ESG best practices. This is where T3 ESG Assurance Services add value, providing you with bespoke solutions that ensure your ESG claims are credible and verifiable. In a world where over 90% of CEOs agree with the Harvard Business Review that sustainability is fundamental to success, ensuring that your ESG journey is transparent and meets stakeholder expectations becomes paramount. Here are the key reasons why ESG Assurance is essential.

Here’s a comprehensive overview of the importance of ESG assurance:

  • Rising Consumer Demand: The 83% of consumers from a 2021 PwC survey that feel businesses should actively shape and adhere to ESG best practices underscores how consumers increasingly expect businesses to not only commit to ESG principles but also show tangible progress and outcomes. The above factors make ESG Assurance services indispensable. They offer an external validation of a company’s ESG claims, ensuring that the disclosed information is credible, accurate, and verifiable. This layer of trust and credibility is critical for ESG reporting.
  • Importance of Credibility and Verification: In this environment, ESG assurance services become essential. They provide an external validation of a company’s ESG claims, ensuring that the information disclosed is credible, accurate, and verifiable. This adds an essential layer of trust and integrity to ESG reporting.
  • CEOs’ view on Sustainability: The Harvard Business Review reported that more than 90% of CEOs believe that sustainability is essential to success. This reflects a shift in business strategy, where sustainability is now considered core to long-term business viability and success. T3’s ESG Assurance Services address this by providing tailored interventions that review an organization’s ESG reporting and practices against existing standards and stakeholder expectations.
  • ESG Assurance Services: T3’s ESG Assurance Services cater to this need by offering tailored solutions that align with an organization’s unique ESG journey. These services scrutinize a company’s ESG reporting and practices, ensuring they meet established standards and stakeholder expectations.
  • Transparency and Stakeholder Trust: In fostering transparency in ESG practices, organizations can effectively build and maintain trust with stakeholders. The idea is to demonstrate commitment to sustainability in a tangible and trustworthy manner, a key consideration as consumers and investors place a premium on corporate sustainability practices.
  • Mitigating Risks of Greenwashing: With increasing scrutiny on ESG claims, there is a risk of greenwashing, where companies make misleading claims about their environmental practices. ESG assurance helps mitigate this risk by providing an objective assessment of a company’s ESG initiatives, ensuring that claims are substantiated and genuine.
  • Enhancing Market Position and Competitiveness: Companies that invest in ESG assurance can enhance their market position and competitiveness. By showcasing verified and credible sustainability practices, they can differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace and appeal to the growing segment of sustainability-conscious consumers and investors.
  • Regulatory Compliance: As ESG reporting requirements become more stringent and widespread, ESG assurance plays a crucial role in ensuring that companies are not just compliant with these regulations but are also able to clearly communicate their ESG performance to stakeholders.
  • Long-term Value Creation: ESG assurance is not just about compliance or risk mitigation; it’s about creating long-term value. By ensuring that ESG practices are robust and effectively communicated, companies can unlock opportunities for sustainable growth and innovation.
  • Global Trend Towards Sustainability: The demand for ESG assurance is part of a broader global movement towards sustainability, reflecting a shift in societal values and expectations. It indicates a future where companies are increasingly held accountable for their impact on society and the environment.

In summary, ESG assurance is becoming a critical component for businesses in building trust, enhancing their reputation, and ensuring compliance in an increasingly sustainability-focused world. Companies that engage in credible and verified ESG practices are well-positioned to thrive in a marketplace where sustainability is a key determinant of success.

Significance in Today's Landscape

In today’s landscape, businesses are increasingly expected to furnish clear, transparent information about their long-term commitments to ESG principles. Such demand isn’t merely from governments and stakeholders but from an array of individuals and entities heavily vested in the future of that company. Investors, suppliers, customers, and staff all desire to understand the core purpose and values of the companies they engage with be it as a workplace or business partner.

Simultaneously, regulatory bodies and standards-setting bodies around the globe are stepping up the ante. They’re introducing a spate of mandatory reporting requirements that stress the importance of ESG considerations. From the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) climate disclosures to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the message is loud and clear. Companies will now have to not just track extra ESG metrics but also provide formal assurance on these metrics.

This shift has led to a noticeable accent on reporting non-financial metrics, alongside the adoption of a wide array of ESG goals and frameworks. These can vary significantly based on sector, size, and intricacy of a business. It’s a fluid terrain that needs companies to be more transparent, accountable and engaged with their ESG pledges than ever.

The yardstick for corporate reporting in the UK is now under heightened scrutiny, with a focal point on uniform and dependable reporting of non-financial information. Premium listed companies in the UK are obligatory to confirm in their annual report on their alignment of disclosures with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) guidelines. Non-alignment necessitates a straightforward explanation. Further, large private companies are mandated to adhere to the Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (CFFD) requirements.

The situation is somewhat reciprocated in the European Union with similar drives signaling the importance of transparent ESG reporting. For instance, the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) seeks to compel large companies to disclose specific information on how they handle and manage social and environmental concerns. The aim is to advance the consistency and comparability of non-financial information akin to what the UK is pursuing. Likewise, the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) mandates financial market participants to detail sustainability-related information, aiding in a deeper understanding of investment products’ sustainability attributes.

Both instances, UK and EU, epitomize a global drift toward heightened accountability and transparency in corporate reporting in relation to environmental social governance (ESG) that mirrors rising investor, consumer, and regulator awareness for businesses to underline their commitment to sustainable and conscientious practices.

WHO DOES IT IMPACT?

All firms that falls under mandatory ESG disclosure or would want to start disclosing voluntarily ESG

Asset Managers
Banks
Supervisors
Commodity Houses
Fintechs

How Can We Help?

Our approach includes:

1

Pre-Assurance Readiness

We provide an indepth understanding of prevailing ESG reporting frameworks and trends to ensure your readiness for assurance process.

2

Agreed Upon Procedures (AUP) Report:

A detailed factual AUP Report Service meant specifically for enterprises ramping up their ESG reporting. It includes our auditors conducting a specified set of pre-determined tests and procedures on your ESG data and practices to make available a comprehensive factual report.

3

External Assurance Opinion

Formal opinions on your disclosed ESG metrics, adaptable for either private or public disclosure, compliant with ISAE (UK) 3000 standards. We can also assist in reviewing your models correlated with ESG data and scenarios validation.

Want to hire

ESG Expert? 

Book a call with our experts