INTHEBLACK September 2024 special edition - Flipbook - Page 27
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KEY PRIORITIES
SUSTAINABILITY ASSURANCE
“This [new] strategy and work plan has identified two
strategic topics that we will address over the next
four years. One is the firm culture and governance
and the other is the possible extension of the scope
of our code to other professionals
and accountants.
“The reason why we identified and decided to
move forward with exploring these two topics is
that we have, on the one hand, been asked by the
stakeholders that we do so.
“On the other hand, observation of what
is going around the accounting firms and
the accountancy services – in terms of the
opportunities, the risks, the threats, some
events, some changes in the environment –
makes us think that these are the two topics
that we should address.”
“Sustainability information is something that is being
required by investors, by users… to make sure that
their decisions are based on integral information,
complete information, reliable information.
“This is only achievable if we make sure that
the ones who are preparing the sustainability
information reports and those who are involved in
providing sustainability assurance adopt the right
behaviour in applying the other standards.
“There are already reporting standards, IFRS S1
and S2, the European ESRS. There will be assurance
standards, performance standards.
“Ultimately, all these problems of greenwashing,
greenhushing, et cetera, they start and exist
because – in some moment of this sustainability
reporting preparation or sustainability reporting
assurance – someone opted to take the wrong
behavioural approach to the way they should
provide information. These standards are not
another set of standards to say the same thing.
“It is really an ethical behaviour for professionals
and all the providers of these kind of services to
understand how to navigate the ethical dilemmas,
pressures, perplexities, et cetera, that they will
face when developing sustainability reports or
performing sustainability assurance.” ●
COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
“Upholding ethics in the accounting services is really
a collective project. It is not something that the
IESBA or the IESBA standards can address all alone.
“It is something that has to be achieved in an
integrated way where regulators – where companies
and clients themselves, governments, corporate
governance [and] community – play a role.”
ETHICS ESSENTIALS intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au 27
