IAASB: ISSA 5000 Implementation Guidance

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IAASB: ISSA 5000 Implementation Guidance

• 04 February 2025
• Auditing and Assurance
• South African Accounting Academy

Summary:

To support practitioners, the International Audit and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) has published a new Implementation Guide on the International Standard on Sustainability Assurance (ISSA) 5000, General Requirements for Sustainability Assurance Engagements (ISSA 5000).

Article:

The IAASB developed this guide to provide practical non-authoritative guidance intended to assist practitioners in conducting assurance engagements in accordance with ISSA 5000.

This guide covers the fundamental concepts in ISSA 5000 and the conduct of the assurance engagement from acceptance and continuance to reporting. It provides further explanation of concepts and the practitioner’s responsibilities.

It also discusses key principles and, as appropriate, the interaction between requirements, and challenges practitioners encounter in practice when conducting sustainability assurance engagements. The IAASB identified these specific challenges through outreach, direct stakeholder engagement, exposure draft responses and deliberations.

Among the information included in the ISSA 5000 Implementation Guide are:

• Introduction (to ISSA 5000 and to the Guide)
• Fundamental principles and concepts (including, among other, limited and reasonable assurance, quality management, evidence, materiality)
• Acceptance and continuance of the engagement, including preconditions for assurance
• Group sustainability assurance engagements, value chain and using the work of others
• Planning (overall strategy and engagement plan, and materiality)
• Risk identification and assessment
• Responding to the risks of material misstatements (including, among other, overall responses and designing and performing further procedures at the disclosure and assertion level)
• Concluding ad reporting (including, among other, evaluating the sufficiency and appropriateness of evidence obtained, evaluating the effect of uncorrected misstatements, forming a conclusion on the sustainability information, form and content of the assurance report)

ISSA 5000 addresses assurance engagements on sustainability information reported by entities of all sizes and complexity, prepared under any suitable framework or other criteria.

The Final Pronouncement & Basis for Conclusions were published in November 2024 and are available at https://www.iaasb.org/publications/international-standard-sustainability-assurance-5000-general-requirements-sustainability-assurance

EFFECTIVE DATE: In jurisdictions that adopt it, ISSA 5000 is effective for periods beginning on or after 15 December 2026.

Click here to download the 194-page Implementation Guide:

https://ifacweb.blob.core.windows.net/publicfiles/2025-01/IAASB-ISSA-5000-Implementation-Guide-Sustainability-Assurance.pdf

Relevance to Auditors, Independent Reviewers & Accountants:

• As an auditor and independent reviewer, you need to comply with International Standards on Auditing and other Assurance Services, and thus you need knowledge of newly revised standards that are approved as well as when they become effective.
• Failure to adhere to International Standards may be interpreted as negligence and you could be held liable.
• This ISSA deals with both reasonable and limited assurance engagements, and can be used by all practitioners (under certain circumstances).
• As an auditor and independent reviewer, you should be aware of new standards and publications (like guidance and support materials) issued by the standard-setting bodies, e.g. the IAASB.

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