At a glance
Key Priorities
“This [new] strategy and work plan has identified two strategic topics that we will address over the next four years. One is the firm culture and governance and the other is the possible extension of the “scope of our code to other professionals and accountants.
“The reason why we identified and decided to move forward with exploring these two topics is that we have, on the one hand, been asked by the stakeholders that we do so.
“On the other hand, observation of what is going around the accounting firms and the accountancy services – in terms of the opportunities, the risks, the threats, some events, some changes in the environment – makes us think that these are the two topics that we should address.”
Collective responsibility
“Upholding ethics in the accounting services is really a collective project. It is not something that the IESBA or the IESBA standards can address all alone.
“It is something that has to be achieved in an integrated way where regulators – where companies and clients themselves, governments, corporate governance [and] community – play a role.”
Sustainability assurance
“Sustainability information is something that is being required by investors, by users… to make sure that their decisions are based on integral information, complete information, reliable information.
“This is only achievable if we make sure that the ones who are preparing the sustainability information reports and those who are involved in providing sustainability assurance adopt the right behaviour in applying the other standards.
“There are already reporting standards, IFRS S1 and S2, the European ESRS. There will be assurance standards, performance standards.
“Ultimately, all these problems of greenwashing, greenhushing, et cetera, they start and exist because – in some moment of this sustainability reporting preparation or sustainability reporting assurance – someone opted to take the wrong behavioural approach to the way they should provide information. These standards are not another set of standards to say the same thing.
“It is really an ethical behaviour for professionals and all the providers of these kind of services to understand how to navigate the ethical dilemmas, pressures, perplexities, et cetera, that they will face when developing sustainability reports or performing sustainability assurance.”
