New York, USA. The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) has approved the International Standard on Sustainability Assurance (ISSA 5000) today (20 September).
The standard will be effective for 15th December 2026, both in relation to sustainability information reported for periods beginning on or after the specific date.
After the vote, IAASB chair Tom Seidenstein said "this is a milestone accomplishment for this board".
"Even though we built off existing standards, practices and guidance, we created something relatively new and the beginning of potentially a new suite of standards, in a new way of working," he continued. "And show that when the world demanded something from a public interest perspective, that we could act quickly, and be flexible in our approach to doing it."
"Not only that, but people used to say that it took standards setters too long to deliver something, but we've delivered this even earlier than was initially expected, and now, we have a high quality standard ready for the marketplace to adopt, and initial indications are that the market is going to adopt this standard as a global baseline."
Representing the Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB), which will rubber stamp the standard, Dave Sullivan congratulated the IAASB and called it an historic moment.
"It will be very important for a lot of reasons, much bigger than just auditing or providing assurance on sustainability matters, but protecting the earth. So this is the value that you provided here," he said. "Your ability to do it in the time frame that you did it in sets the bar in a level that maybe you don't want it to be at Tom."
But once the congratulations and applause died down, and despite the euphoria floating in the room, there was a clear feeling that "now the real work starts", as a technical staff member put it to Corporate Disclosures over a cup of coffee. The standard needs to be adopted by jurisdictions around the world, and used by assurance providers.
And there all eyes turn to the European Union, where the European Commission is due to adopt a sustainability assurance standard by 2026.
There is little doubt that the Commission will adopt ISSA 5000, just because there isn't any assurance standards setting capabilities in Europe to create standards. But the question is, will it add and or delete from ISSA 5000 as per the IAASB wording?
There are a number of big-ticket items to look for. On the delete side of things, the Commission is likely to remove any reference of reasonable assurance in the standard, as it looks to adopt a standard for limited assurance. In addition all references to obligtation for the assurance provider to determine the suitability of the sustainability reporting framework will likely be removed, as the ESRS is the only option in the EU.
Furthermore, Corporate Disclosures understands that the Commission is not keen on the reference to the IESBA code of ethics and the International Standard on Quality Management, which are both followed by statutory auditors but not other service providers.
Then the Commission might want to add some specific items relating to the European reporting framework. These, Corporate Disclosures understands, would be related to the Committee of European Auditing Oversight Bodies guidelines, which are due to be published at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, the IAASB will be working in implementation guidance for its newly adopted standard.