Column: Plan for independence before hiring sustainability advisers, accountant says

Companies and their accountants should settle questions of independence long before a sustainability assurance report is ready for signing, Mannel Hernandez, a director for the Audit & Assurance practice area at P&A Grant Thornton, argues in a column published by Mindanao Times.

Hernandez notes that the 2026 edition of the International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants brings sustainability reporting and assurance more clearly under its ethics and independence rules. According to the column, the reporting-related revisions take effect on December 15, 2026, while the assurance provisions generally apply to engagements covering periods beginning on or after that date.

He argues that the tension is not whether advisers should help companies still building their sustainability reporting, but where that help stops. Assessing existing processes, identifying gaps, sharing industry practices and doing assurance-readiness work may be permissible depending on the circumstances, he writes. Concerns become serious, however, when a practitioner makes management decisions, designs processes or controls whose outputs may be assured, or prepares information the same firm may later assure.

To illustrate, Hernandez describes a hypothetical firm asked to sign an assurance report after earlier helping develop parts of the client's reporting process. After reviewing its work, the firm concludes it went beyond advice, declines the engagement, and another provider is appointed. He acknowledges this could disrupt timetables and raise costs, but argues that signing anyway would trade a deadline problem for a credibility problem.

He stresses that not every prior service rules out later assurance, since the nature and extent of the work matter. He urges executives to consider future assurance needs when appointing advisers, and suggests they ask: "If you help us with this today, will it affect what you can independently assure us tomorrow?"

Hernandez says the December 2026 effective date should prompt earlier conversations among accountants, executives and report preparers about who owns judgments, who builds processes, and who may later assure the results.