Further Information

Responsibility of the Assurance Practitioner

Our responsibility is to express a conclusion with limited assurance on the Combined Non-financial Statement based on our assurance engagement.

We conducted our assurance engagement in accordance with International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000 (Revised): Assurance Engagements other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information, issued by the IAASB. This Standard requires that we plan and perform the assurance engagement to obtain limited assurance about whether any matters have come to our attention that cause us to believe that the Company’s Combined Non-financial Statement, other than the external sources of documentation or expert opinions mentioned in the Combined Non-financial Statement, are not prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with §§ 315c in conjunction with 289c to 289e HGB and the EU Taxonomy Regulation and the Delegated Acts issued thereunder as well as the interpretation by the executive directors disclosed in section ‘Information on the EU Taxonomy Regulation’ of the Combined Non-financial Statement.

In a limited assurance engagement, the procedures performed are less extensive than in a reasonable assurance engagement, and accordingly a substantially lower level of assurance is obtained. The selection of the assurance procedures is subject to the professional judgement of the assurance practitioner.

In the course of our assurance engagement, we have, amongst other things, performed the following assurance procedures and other activities:

  • Gain an understanding of the structure of the Group’s sustainability organisation and stakeholder engagement
  • Inquiries of the executive directors and relevant employees involved in the preparation of the Combined Non-financial Statement about the preparation process, about the internal control
  • system relating to this process and about disclosures in the Combined Non-financial Statement
  • Identification of likely risks of material misstatement in the Combined Non-financial Statement
  • Analytical procedures on selected disclosures in the Combined Non-financial Statement
  • Reconciliation of selected disclosures with the corresponding data in the consolidated financial statements and the combined management report
  • Evaluation of the presentation of the Combined Non-financial Statement
  • Evaluation of the process to identify taxonomy-eligible and taxonomy-aligned economic activities and the corresponding disclosures in the Combined Non-financial Statement
  • Inquiries on the relevance of climate-risks

In determining the disclosures in accordance with Article 8 of the EU Taxonomy Regulation, the executive directors are required to interpret undefined legal terms. Due to the immanent risk that undefined legal terms may be interpreted differently, the legal conformity of their interpretation and, accordingly, our assurance engagement thereon are subject to uncertainties.