Recently I was asked to contribute to a UNPRI webinar on assurance. I thought that I should check a few facts before sharing my opinions. Perverse behaviour I agree, but I am that sort of guy.
I was surprised by what I found.
Never a one to let good research go to waste, I determined to share my findings through a series of blogs and then draw some conclusions.
So here goes with Assurance blog 101.
Here’s what I did.
I took the whole of the FTSE100 and collated which companies were citing assurance in their reports and which weren’t. I looked at how those who were assuring were assuring and I drew some conclusions.
I will share my conclusions in the last blog of the series.
The top line finding is that the majority of FTSE100 reporters don’t assure.
Fifty-two companies carried no assurance statement in their report while 47 did. We reach the round hundred by counting IAG, the recently merged airline group, as an abstention. The merged group has yet to issue a report, so we don’t know which side of the line they will fall.
Does this shock us? No.
Does it surprise us? Well, it surprised me.
The evangelists of ever-increasing prescription in corporate responsibility/sustainability have majored on the theme that assurance of non-financial data is a non-negotiable part of the package.In the FTSE100 at least, the facts don’t bear them out. Here, as Mr Speaker would say, “The Noes have it, the Noes have it”