The Main Issues and Improvements Related to Sustainability Report Assurance
Asian Tax Journal Vol. 23 No. 6 (2022), pp. 171-204
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the current status and research trend of sustainability report assurance, which has recently emerged as an important issue, to present major issues related to sustainability report assurance, and to propose a method for introducing a assurance system for sustainability reports in Korea. The proposals related to sustainability report assurance in this study are as follows. First, it is necessary to unify the terminology of the assurors, clarify the definition of the assurors, and limit the assurors to legal entities with certain qualifications. In addition, it is necessary to clarify whether the same accounting firm can provide services related to auditing financial statements and preparation of a sustainability report at the same time, and the legal responsibility of a sustainability report assurors should be clarified. Second, it should be clarified whether external audit and sustainability report assurance can be concurrently performed. Third, the nature of assurance should be defined, and terms related to ‘assurance’ should be unified, and the reliability of the sustainability report should be evaluated according to the level of assurance. Fourth, in order to reduce confusion related to the scope of sustainability report assurance and to enhance comparability among companies, the scope of assurance of the sustainability report should be clearly defined. Fifth, the level of assurance for each assurance standard should be clarified to enhance comparability between companies that have applied different assurance standards. Sixth, it is desirable to introduce the use of a standardized assurance report format, and to enact only the essential format because the characteristics of industries vary. Seventh, the assurance fee should be disclosed to prevent price competition due to the low price. Eighth, it is desirable to make the assurance of the sustainability report compulsory in stages by considering the burden on companies and reflecting international trends. This study is significant in that it presents major issues related to sustainability report assurance and suggests improvement measures in a situation where interest in the mandatory publication of sustainability reports is rapidly increasing in recent years. It is expected that the proposals in this study will be discussed as soon as possible, contributing to the establishment of sustainability report assurance
Keywords
- sustainability report
- assurance
- practitioner
- verification
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