Crossing fingers without Assurance is not a good strategy.
“When assurance isn't legally required, you face a simple choice: invest a modest amount in independent verification, or accept the risk that your sustainability claims are flawed, misleading, or outright incorrect. The price of assurance pales in comparison to the cost of public embarrassment, fraud allegations, and greenwashing scandals”
Pauline Bailley, Head of ISO Certifications at Speeki
Six reasons why we think taking a ‘fingers crossed strategy” is unwise.
Investors Won't Trust Unverified Data, period.
Institutional investors and ESG-focused funds increasingly demand independent assurance on sustainability disclosures before making investment decisions or maintaining holdings. Self-reported, unverified ESG data is seen as unreliable and creates information risk that sophisticated investors won't accept.
This translates directly into cost of capital—companies with assured sustainability data access better financing terms, green bonds, and sustainability-linked loans, while those without face higher scrutiny and potentially higher borrowing costs.
In competitive capital markets, unverified sustainability reporting can mean the difference between securing funding and being passed over for competitors with credible, assured disclosures.
You're Creating Legal and Litigation Exposure.
Unverified sustainability claims create legal risk that many organizations underestimate. Securities regulators are taking enforcement action against companies for misleading ESG disclosures. Consumer protection authorities are prosecuting greenwashing under misleading and deceptive conduct laws.
Shareholders are filing class actions alleging fraud based on exaggerated sustainability performance. Without independent assurance, you have weaker defenses when challenged, you can't point to third-party verification as evidence of due diligence or good faith. In litigation, the absence of independent assurance can be presented as evidence of negligence or recklessness in making public sustainability claims.
The cost of assurance is a fraction of potential legal fees, settlements, and penalties from challenged disclosures.
Greenwashing Allegations Can Destroy Your Reputation.
In today's environment of heightened ESG scrutiny, unverified sustainability claims are increasingly viewed with skepticism—or worse, suspicion. Activist investors, NGOs, journalists, and regulators are actively hunting for companies making exaggerated or unsubstantiated environmental and social claims.
Without independent assurance, a single challenge to your sustainability data can spiral into accusations of greenwashing, triggering media coverage, customer backlash, and regulatory investigations.
The reputational damage from being labeled a greenwasher far exceeds any cost savings from avoiding assurance, and once trust is lost, it's extraordinarily difficult to rebuild.
You're Handing Competitors a Market Advantage.
In sectors where customers, supply chain partners, or tender processes require verified sustainability credentials, operating without independent assurance puts you at a competitive disadvantage.
Major corporations increasingly require suppliers to provide assured ESG data as part of procurement processes. Without verification, your sustainability claims carry less weight than competitors who have invested in assurance, potentially costing you contracts, partnerships, and market positioning. This is particularly acute in industries like construction, manufacturing, and professional services where sustainability credentials directly influence winning business.
Your competitors with assured reports aren't just checking a compliance box—they're gaining commercial advantage.
You're Gambling with Regulatory Compliance.
Sustainability reporting requirements are tightening globally, and regulators are increasingly focused on the accuracy of ESG disclosures. Even if assurance isn't mandatory in your jurisdiction today, regulatory trends point toward mandatory verification within the next few years.
By delaying independent assurance, you're building reporting systems and data collection processes without external validation, meaning when assurance does become mandatory, you may discover fundamental flaws in how you've been measuring and reporting.
Early adoption of independent verification ensures you're building compliant processes from the start, rather than scrambling to remediate years of potentially non-compliant reporting.
Internal Teams Have Blind Spots You Can't See.
Your internal team is close to the data, the processes, and the assumptions underlying your sustainability reportingand that proximity creates blind spots.
Confirmation bias, organizational culture, and the pressure to report positive results can subtly influence how data is collected, calculated, and presented, even with the best intentions.
Independent verifiers bring fresh eyes, sector benchmarking experience, and no stake in the outcome. They catch methodological errors, inconsistent boundary definitions, data gaps, and calculation mistakes that internal teams simply miss because they're too familiar with their own systems.
Without external verification, you're operating on the assumption that your internal checks are sufficient—an assumption that's often proven wrong only after public disclosure.
