The Sustainability Validation Landscape & Assurance Readiness

We often notice that companies struggle with data quality and (preparing for) assurance by an external auditor. The costs and the burden of this on the organization can be high. At the same time the demand for reliable data ever increases: be it for accurately measuring and steering one’s own performance, but also as a result of external forces: (upcoming) legislation, demands from ratings, benchmarks and from customers and value chain partners. This webinar introduces the various possibilities to have your sustainability data critically looked at to increase data reliability. From assurance and external validation to internal sustainability audit. First of all, Sustainalize will guide you through what happens in the non-financial / ESG reporting world and why the demand for reliable data has never been bigger – increasing, in fact. We briefly touch upon relevant trends in the market, (upcoming) legislation, demands from ratings, benchmarks as well as clients and value chain partners. The webinar also makes you familiar with different ways to increase your sustainability/impact data quality. Providing practical examples from businesses and good practices, the webinar answers questions such as:

• How can data quality be improved? Internally or with external support?
• What is the benefit and what is the downside of seeking external assurance?
• How to prepare for external assurance?
• What other options exist to have sustainability data validated? And how to decide?

This webinar is presented by our experts Anja and Julian. Also, guest speakers Anne-Lize van Dusseldorp (Director Sustainability & Relations at Aalberts) and Micha Reusen (Head of Sustainability & Innovation at Bouwinvest Real Estate Investors) share their experiences in ensuring non-financial data is reliable. With Anne-Lize elaborating on how Aalberts is increasing data reliability, and Micha explaining why Bouwinvest is seeking external assurance, we discuss two views on the different ways to improve non-financial reporting quality.