I believe assurance has a real role to play in business sustainability, however, as the previous post suggests it is still in its infancy. Still in its infancy even though it has been around for 20+ years.
The question is what effect is assurance having currently, is it forwading the cause of sustainability or is it just providing extra maybe undeserved credibility to businesses.
Untill the release of Just Assurance by corporate register.com there have been two major reviews of assurance statements.
1. Ball A, et al (2000) External transparency or internal capture? The role of third-party statements in adding value to corporate environmental reports. Business Strategy and the Environment 9 pg1-23
2. O’Dwyer B and Owen D (2005) Assurance statement practice in environmental, social and sustainability reporting: a critical evaluation. The Business Accounting Review 37 pg 205-229
Both these papers were critical of the assurance process and questioned the motives of the reporting and assuring organisations. Ball et al (2000) found that the verification process showed a lack of independence on the part of the auditors, there was evidence of auditee control over the process, that the verification practice exhibited a managerial wish to retain control rather than a corporate commitment to external transparency and accountability. O’Dwyer and Owen (2005) reported similar findings adding that there may be a wish to keep stakeholders out of the accountability process.
These papers were interesting but neither of them looked at the effect of the assurance statement on the following years report. Is the reporter taking notice of the assuror. I am about to undertake such a study for my dissertation project on my MSc - so lets see. I would also like to hear from anybody involved in this kind of assurance who might consider being interviewed as part of my project.
One thing we all need to be asking ourseleves though is what are we assuring - are we assuring that what a company says is true or are we assuring that a company is acting in a sustainable manner. For instance is it right that BP can receive a credibility improving assurance statement when it is actively looking at extracting oil from tar sands. Apparently one of the most unsustainable activities for planet earth and future generations they could perfom.
Would be pleased to hear what others may think
StewyM
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