It is not all about the numbers. Words are important too.
“Sustainability is multidisciplinary—spanning science, ethics, and strategy. Select specialists who understand ESG and Sustainability as a distinct discipline, not accountants retrofitting financial audit skills to a fundamentally different challenges”
Jenna Kim - Auditor and Engage Product Leader
Six reasons why specialist Sustainability Assurance firms are better than your financial accounting firms.
Technical Competence in Environmental and Social Metrics.
Traditional accounting firms train their staff to audit financial transactions, revenue recognition, and balance sheet items—not to evaluate the scientific validity of carbon sequestration claims, assess biodiversity net gain calculations, or verify water stress assessments.
Sustainability assurance requires practitioners who understand life cycle analysis, greenhouse gas protocols, ecological impact methodologies, and social impact measurement frameworks.
When your report includes Scope 3 emissions across complex supply chains, nature-based solution credits, or human rights due diligence findings, you need auditors with environmental science backgrounds, sustainability certifications, and technical training in ESG measurement, not accountants who've completed a weekend course on climate reporting.
The technical gap between financial accounting competence and sustainability measurement expertise is vast, and it shows in the quality of assurance work.
Supply Chain and Operational Sustainability Expertise.
Sustainability performance doesn't live in the finance department, it's embedded in operations, procurement, product design, logistics, and supply chain management.
Specialist assurance providers like Speeki understand how to assess operational sustainability practices: evaluating factory energy efficiency claims, verifying responsible sourcing programs, assessing circular economy implementation, and reviewing supplier sustainability screening processes.
We understand manufacturing processes, agricultural practices, logistics emissions, and operational waste management in ways that accounting-trained auditors simply don't.
When assurance requires visiting production facilities, interviewing operations managers, reviewing procurement processes, or assessing supplier audits, specialist firms bring operational sustainability expertise that accounting firms lack. They speak the language of operations, not just accounting.
Fluency Across Multiple Sustainability Frameworks.
Accounting firms are comfortable with GAAP, IFRS, and financial reporting standards that have decades of established practice and clear rules.
Sustainability reporting operates in a far more complex landscape—organizations simultaneously navigate GRI, ISSB, CSRD, TCFD, SASB, CDP, and sector-specific frameworks, each with different scopes, methodologies, and disclosure requirements.
Specialist sustainability assurance providers like Speeki live in this multi-framework environment daily, understanding how standards interact, where conflicts arise, and how to assess compliance across multiple reporting regimes simultaneously.
We grasp the nuances between disclosure frameworks and performance standards, between voluntary and mandatory reporting, and between stakeholder-focused and investor-focused approaches.
Materiality Assessment Through a Sustainability Lens.
Financial materiality and sustainability materiality operate on different principles. Financial auditors assess materiality based on what impacts the financial statements—what matters to investors' economic decisions.
Sustainability materiality includes impact materiality (how the organization affects people and planet) and double materiality (combining financial and impact perspectives), requiring fundamentally different analytical approaches.
Specialist firms, like Speeki, understand stakeholder-inclusive materiality processes, can facilitate robust materiality assessments that engage diverse stakeholder groups, and recognize that what's material for sustainability reporting may not appear material under financial audit thresholds.
Accounting firms defaulting to financial materiality concepts miss environmental and social issues that stakeholders consider critical, producing assurance that's technically compliant but strategically irrelevant.
Capability to Assess Qualitative and Forward-Looking Information.
No matter how professionally your internal audit function operates, it cannot escape the fundamental conflict: it's employed by the organization, reports to management, and operates within the same governance structure it's meant to scrutinize.
External assurance providers like Speeki stake their accreditation, professional licenses, and market reputation on the independence and integrity of their opinions. We answer to accreditation bodies, professional standards boards, and regulatory oversight, not to your CFO or board.
This structural independence means external providers can challenge assumptions, question data quality, and issue qualified opinions without career consequences or organizational pressure.
When stakeholders evaluate your sustainability claims, they understand this difference instinctively: internal audit serves management; external assurance serves the market.
Strategic Sustainability Insight, Not Just Compliance Box-Ticking.
Accounting firms approach assurance through a compliance mindset—did you follow the rules, do the numbers reconcile, are the controls documented?
Specialist sustainability assurance providers like Speeki bring strategic perspective gained from working exclusively in ESG—they understand industry sustainability trends, emerging best practices, competitive positioning, and how sustainability performance connects to long-term value creation.
We provide insights beyond verification: benchmarking against peers, identifying gaps in your approach, highlighting emerging risks, and suggesting improvements to strengthen both reporting and actual performance.
When you engage Speeki specialists, you get advisors who understand sustainability as a strategic business imperative, not accountants treating ESG as another compliance checklist to audit. The difference shows in the value of insights you receive alongside the assurance opinion.
Most of Sustainability reporting standards are Words not Numbers.