CSRD: AFNOR Compétences trains the first sustainability auditors
With a touch of humor, they call themselves “pioneers”. Who are they? These are the first 15 trainees to inaugurate the sustainability auditor training cycle dedicated to independent third-party organizations! Designed jointly by AFNOR Compétences and Apave, this 90-hour module has been approved by the French High Audit Authority (H2A, formerly H3C) since April 23, 2024. Completing an accredited training course is a prerequisite for registering as a sustainability auditor with the same authority and practicing this new profession, at the crossroads of CSR assessment and the world of accounting.
The auditors will act on behalf of an independent third-party organization that is also duly registered, as AFNOR Certification intends to be, in a market where they will cohabit with the accounting (commissaires aux comptes, experts comptables) and legal (avocats) professions. Reminder: as of January1, 2025, companies with more than 500 employees must produce their first sustainability report, for their 2024 financial year, based on standardized indicators developed on environmental, social and governance (ESG) themes, in a dual materiality logic. These reports will have to be audited.
CSRD: learners and trainers with varied profiles
“The AFNOR Compétences sustainability auditor training course takes the time to delve deeper into a complex regulatory subject, and provides an important complement to the articulation between different reference frameworks (CSR, ESG, CSRD, etc.), with practical case studies and a vision of what tomorrow’s sustainability audit will be like”, says Damien Pataki, one of the course participants and founder of the Caporg firm. Like him, the trainees in the first class, who came from very different professional backgrounds (organizational consultants, CSR managers, evaluators, etc.), appreciated being trained both in the accounting aspect and in the various environmental and social regulations and governance issues facing organizations. And it’s all done by people with equally varied backgrounds: intermediary audit and accounting firms, taxonomy experts, lawyers, etc.
“The 90-hour training course, with its financial and extra-financial content and the diversity of professions covered by the trainees and lecturers, gives pride of place to inter-professional exchanges. This is what will ensure the successful deployment of the CSRD, and give confidence to the organizations subject to it, some of which are still groping their way through the exercise”, comments Anne Thomas, Director of AFNOR Compétences.
At the end of the course, the trainees were presented with the follow-up certificate validating their training in the certification of sustainability information. They are expected to be among the first to apply for inclusion on the list of sustainability auditors , maintained by H2A. And so be ready for the January1, 2025 deadline.
