Verification and Assurance
Verification
The board reviews corporate social responsibility issues as part of its risk management process. The board believes that the measures taken to review the sustainability information provide a suitable level of confidence.
Health and safety data is reviewed by group health and safety experts and as part of the group environment, health and safety (EHS) audit programme. Environmental data is reviewed by group environmental experts and as part of the group EHS audit programme.
Human resources data is reviewed and verified by internal senior human resources professionals. Community engagement data and information relating to charitable donations is reviewed and verified by internal experts.
Information on financial performance forms part of the external audit of Johnson Matthey’s financial accounts.
All data is reviewed by internal sustainability experts and at appropriate levels of management up to and including the Chief Executive’s Committee.
Other information presented in the Sustainability Report is reviewed by the relevant functional experts and subjected to the same internal sign off procedures as the group Annual Report.
Johnson Matthey utilises external specialists on specific sustainability issues. Over the past year this has included external audits or reviews of people management systems, health and safety (OHSAS 18001) and environmental management systems (ISO 14001).
Assurance
This year Johnson Matthey presents its first Sustainability Report. The report outlines our sustainability vision for 2017 and the further steps taken to embed sustainability into our business processes and management systems. Given the significance of these developments and to provide our stakeholders with additional confidence in the work we are undertaking, we are seeking external assurance as outlined below.
We have engaged Environmental Resources Management Limited (ERM) to provide independent assurance that the following have been appropriately reported in our Sustainability Report 2007/08 (the Report):
- Our Sustainability 2017 Vision and the status of implementation of this vision;
- The processes in place to identify and govern our social, and environment, health and safety (EHS) risks; and
- The processes in place to collect, aggregate and report our social and EHS performance data.
ERM’s assurance was conducted through a series of interviews with a sample of group and business level senior managers and supporting documentation review. As this was the first year in our external assurance journey, we did not ask ERM to conduct any work at site level.
Based on the work performed, ERM concluded that in all material respects, the selected assurance topics have been appropriately reported in the Report. ERM’s full assurance statement details the assurance scope, basis of work and limitations, reporting criteria and assurance standards, respective responsibilities and assurance activities, ERM’s conclusions, key observations and recommendations for future improvement.