Appendices
Appendix 1: Assurance Report KPMG Sustainability B.V.
40
We were engaged by the Executive Board of
Heineken N.V. ('Heineken') to provide assurance
on the Heineken Sustainability Report 2007
(further referred to as 'The Report'). The Report,
including the identification of material issues, is
the responsibility of the company's management.
Our responsibility is to issue an assurance report
on The Report.
What was included in the scope of our assurance
engagement?
Our engagement was designed to provide the
readers of The Report with limited assurance
on whether the information in The Report is
fairly stated.
Procedures performed to obtain a limited level of
assurance are aimed at determining the plausibility
of information and are less extensive than those
for a reasonable level of assurance.
Which reporting criteria did Heineken use?
There are no generally accepted standards for
reporting sustainability performance. Heineken
applies its own sustainability performance
reporting criteria, derived from the Sustainability
Reporting Guidelines (G3) of the Global Reporting
Initiative and internal corporate guidelines for
reporting, as detailed in the 'Reporting basis'
on pages 42-45. It is important to view the
performance data in the context of this
explanatory information. We believe that these
criteria are suitable in view of the purpose of
our assurance engagement.
Which assurance standard did we use?
We carried out our engagement in accordance
with Standard 3410N 'Assurance engagements
relating to sustainability reports' of the Royal
Netherlands Institute of Register Accountants.
This Standard requires, amongst others, that the
assurance team possesses the specific knowledge,
skills and professional competencies needed
to understand and review the information
in The Report, and that they comply with
the requirements of the IFAC Code of Ethics
for Professional Accountants to ensure
their independence.
What did we do to reach our conclusions?
To determine whether the information in The
Report is fairly stated we:
performed a media analysis and internet search
on environmental, safety and social issues
relating to Heineken, to obtain information on
relevant sustainability issues in the reporting
period;
reviewed the follow up of the stakeholder
dialogue in The Report;
reviewed the systems and processes for
information management, internal control and
processing of the qualitative and quantitative
information in the report, at corporate level;
reviewed the systems used for generating,
validating and aggregating the environmental
and safety data at corporate level;
visited four sites in Russia, Nigeria and The
Netherlands to assess the quality of the local
data management systems and the reliability
of the reported data;
Heineken N.V. Sustainability Report 2007
