Companies Act 2014 section 1613

Assurance report on sustainability reporting

Section 1613 sets out the requirements for the format, content, and signing of the assurance report that statutory auditors must produce when providing assurance on a company's sustainability reporting.

• The assurance report must be a formal written document prepared in accordance with the assurance standards referred to in section 1610, identifying the entities, reports, time periods, frameworks, and scope of the assurance work.
• The report must contain a clear opinion, based on a limited assurance engagement, on whether the company's sustainability reporting complies with EU sustainability reporting standards, digital mark-up requirements, and the EU Taxonomy Regulation.
• Where multiple auditors or audit firms conduct the assurance work, they must agree on a joint report and opinion, or else each must state their separate opinion and explain any disagreement.
• The assurance report must be signed and dated by the relevant statutory auditor or auditors, and may be included as a separate section within the main statutory audit report where the same auditor performs both roles.