As sustainability reporting rapidly evolves in response to new global standards and rising stakeholder expectations, the focus is shifting to the role of assurance in building trust. Investors, regulators, and policymakers increasingly recognize that credible, high-quality sustainability information is essential—not just for transparency, but for effective decision-making. In this changing landscape, inconsistent or low-quality assurance is emerging as a serious risk to investor protection and financial stability.

The State of Play: Sustainability Disclosure and Assurance benchmarking series captures and analyzes the extent to which companies are reporting and obtaining assurance over their sustainability disclosures, which assurance standards are being used, and which companies are providing the assurance service. The 2019-2023 Trends & Analysis report marks five years of benchmarking and analysis of global practice in sustainability disclosure and its assurance.