Second straight global award for report assurance

For the second year running, The Co-operative Group’s sustainability report, with assurance by Two Tomorrows, has been recognised with the top prize for Credibility Through Assurance at the CR Reporting Awards (CRRA).

Voted for by the 35,000 global users of CorporateRegister.com, the award recognises the assurance statement that adds most credibility to a corporate responsibility or sustainability report.

Comments from those who reviewed The Co-operative Group's report, Join the Revolution, included:

• “Great report. Lots of supporting data. Easy to find the important information. Clearly outlined goals and progress – even areas where they fell short. Transparent. Visually appealing. Great history of corporate citizenship.”
• “The Co-operative Group published a very inspiring CR report. They have a long history of CR reporting, and with the focus they have for year after year set increasingly challenging goals and have accomplished great things. Their CR report is packed with everything.”
• “Continues to lead and break the mould. The business model is exceptional as far as a demonstrably responsible organisation should be run.”

According to CorporateRegister.com: “Including an independent third-party assurance statement in a CR report is a key step towards establishing the report’s credibility. In the same way that financial reports are audited, stakeholders should have confidence in the integrity of the CR report development process and the accuracy of the report’s content. There’s more – rigorous assurance process also benefits the reporting company by exposing their internal systems to independent external scrutiny.”

Two Tomorrows’ independent assurance statement for The Co-operative Group’s 2010 sustainability report was carried out in accordance with AA1000AS (2008).

Mark Line, executive chairman of Two Tomorrows, says: “For this report and statement to have won for the second year running is testament to the thorough principles that we implement in our assurance work.”

The Co-operative 2010 sustainability report, including the assurance statement from Two Tomorrows

Full list of winners at the CRRA 2012

More about our work for The Co-operative