ABSTRACT
As the prevalence of sustainability, or corporate responsibility, reporting continues to grow, so has the tendency for reports to include an externally prepared assurance statement. The essential purpose of the latter is to enhance the status of sustainability reporting by the inclusion of an independent opinion designed to increase the confi dence of report users in the reliability of the reported information. The importance of external assurance in this context is particularly noted in a comprehensive study of sustainability reporting practices worldwide undertaken by the Association of Chartered Certifi ed Accountants (ACCA) and CorporateRegister.com ( 2004 ) in that it:
represents the next stage of development in sustainability reporting as approaches become more developed and demands of report users more sophisticated. Organisations which fail to obtain assurance for their reports are likely to face issues of credibility.
