In 2008, nearly 3,000 companies are planning to publish some type of corporate non-financial report or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report, the website Corporateregister.com projects. However, only a quarter of the companies are also planning to include third-party verification of the information in the reports. Although the assurance industry is rapidly expanding to meet growing demand, the lack of third party verification throws into question the majority of CSR reports published.
Corporateregister.com recently produced "Assure View: The CSR Assurance Statement Report"" which examines the assurance industry. Its authors’ Paul Scott and Iain McGhee find that even CSR reports that include an assurance statement can suffer from the lack of common standards and universal guidelines.
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