Certified Sustainability Reporting Assurance Course

All three. The course covers the three assurance standards that matter for sustainability reporting today:

• ISSA 5000 — the new global sustainability assurance standard (issued by IAASB, November 2024) that will become the default for many engagements going forward.
• ISAE 3000 — the long-standing IAASB general assurance standard still widely used for sustainability engagements.
• AA1000AS — the AccountAbility specialist standard, with its stakeholder-inclusive principles, still chosen by many issuers.

Delivered across 11 modules / 143 lessons (22 CPD hours / 30 academic hours), with 11 graded module tests. The decision rules for when to use which standard are covered in Module 09 — Decision Tree: Scope and Level of Assurance.

Yes. The course incorporates ISSA 5000 alongside ISAE 3000 and AA1000AS, with practical guidance on how to plan engagements under each. Materials track IAASB and AccountAbility releases on a rolling basis.

Last full content refresh: May 2026. Where standards change between refresh cycles, the Studio's expert support desk and the Mistake Coach surface the relevant updates in the affected modules.

No. Module 01 (Overview of sustainability assurance) builds the audit vocabulary from the ground up — assurance vs. financial audit, parties, subject matter, evidence, criteria, levels — before any standard-by-standard work. Professionals with existing audit familiarity can move quickly through the early modules and spend their time on the applied deliverables (Evidence Index, 10-point Checklist, BoR).

Primarily the reporter side — sustainability and reporting teams preparing for external assurance — but the course is built with 100+ hours of auditor input and is useful for assurance providers extending into sustainability assurance, internal auditors building ESG-data audit discipline, and anyone needing to read assurance reports and pressure-test their conclusions.

in progress The full deliverables list is being finalised for the May 2026 refresh and will be published here shortly. Indicatively, the course package includes the 10-point Assurance-ready Checklist, the Evidence Index template (with worked examples), the Basis of Reporting framework and Method Cards, the Scope Memorandum outline, the Roadmap & RACI template, the Issue & Q&A Log structure, and the Scenario Evidence Pack reference for climate scenarios assurance.

For an up-to-date list of what's in your enrolment, email lra@reporting.academy — we'll send the current package contents.

On Guided Flex, most learners complete the core curriculum over 8–12 weeks of focused study at roughly 4–6 hours per week. The course is 22 CPD / 30 academic hours of material; building the actual Evidence Index, BoR and Checklist for your organisation takes the additional applied time.

On 1:1 Expert Mentorship, the same depth is typically reached faster because mentor sessions accelerate the applied work on your own draft Checklist, Evidence Index and BoR — against your own organisation's data, sector and reporting context.

Dr. Ross Kurinko or a senior LRA mentor, subject to mentor availability. The mentor kickoff session (a separate scheduled call before regular sessions begin) captures your reporting context and is used to assign the best-fit mentor for your route.

Your mentor engagement starts and finishes within six months of purchase. Studio access continues for the full 12-month term in parallel.

Yes — Module 11 is a dedicated end-to-end module: where scenarios sit in your process (Roadmap & RACI), how to extend the Assurance-ready Checklist (item 11), reporting criteria in the BoR, the scenario Method Card (CLIM-SC), data sources & IT, model governance, Evidence Index rows for scenarios, restatements, limitations & estimates, and the Scenario Evidence Pack that auditors accept.

Yes — as a bundle-only add-on at +£350 + VAT. The GRI Standards Certified Training is delivered by a GRI certified trainer using official GRI materials and is available only when added to this Assurance course at enrolment (standalone prices are £700 online / £1,200 on-site).

After completing the GRI training, you receive a separate certificate issued by GRI (not by LRA) — a valuable CV addition and one step on the GRI Certified Sustainability Professional pathway.

Yes — the LRA Alumni Club. When you complete this course on an engaged format (Live Cohort, 1:1 Expert Mentorship, Applied Practice or Deep Review — including the mentor-only California, Middle East and U.S. routes) you become a member of the LRA Alumni Club for life — no expiry from the day you graduate. See the full Alumni Club section on the Full Stack programme page.

What's inside the Club: 30% off any future LRA course in any format (including the 5 new courses launching by end of 2026 and every LRA course after that); the annual LRA Alumni Summit (London + online); quarterly peer benchmarking calls with Dr. Kurinko under NDA; monthly office hours; an alumni-only Slack channel; early access to new courses and a vote on what we cover next; member-only briefings on emerging regulations; and the LRA job board / talent network.

Guided Flex doesn't unlock the Club — that's deliberate. The Club is reserved for learners who chose an engaged format (live time, mentorship or applied work).

1:1 Expert Mentorship — Applied Practice is an upgrade of the 1:1 Expert Mentorship route. It adds a consulting layer on your real working documents — initial Evidence Index, Basis of Reporting draft, internal control catalogue, variance & restatement log, pre-assurance package. Mentor + practitioner-consultant in one engagement.

This work happens outside the Studio platform — via email, file-share and Zoom under explicit NDA. The Studio learning environment stays standard (same content, same AI Tutor); your documents are not uploaded to the platform — we work them as files. Across 10 × 1.5h sessions, the mentor reviews your documents before each call and works with you on improvements during. You receive an improved Evidence Index, Basis of Reporting and 10-point Assurance-ready Checklist on the way out.

Choose Applied Practice if you are leading an active reporting cycle right now and want senior-practitioner judgement applied to your real materials — not just the standard.

Two LRA courses sit directly upstream of assurance. The Certified ESRS Reporting course covers the disclosure standard that auditors test your report against — useful if you want to deepen the reporting side that assurance scrutinises. The Materiality Assessment course covers double materiality end-to-end — the determination that anchors what is in (and out of) the assurance scope in the first place.

If your context spans more than one of these, see the Should I take this course — or the Full Stack programme? question below.

Take the Full Stack programme if this is your first reporting cycle — your company is doing CSRD, climate or sustainability reporting for the first time. Even if assurance looks like a "narrow" framework on paper, a first-time reporter needs more mentor time, broader context and the full reporter foundation. A single standalone course will leave gaps you'll only spot under deadline.

Also take Full Stack if you're new to sustainability reporting in general, or you're tackling a multi-framework programme (EU + global + jurisdictional) and want one enrolment that holds it all together — with four certificates and read-mode access to the Assurance and Materiality Assessment courses.

Take this standalone course if you've already delivered at least one reporting cycle and now want to move into assurance of sustainability reports — ISSA 5000, ISAE 3000, AA1000AS. You know the territory — you just want the focused practitioner mentorship on this specific standard.

Or take this standalone course if you have a functional background (finance, audit, risk, strategy, IR) and want to layer this reporting profile on top of it — e.g. an audit, internal-control or risk professional extending into sustainability-report assurance. Your functional anchor gives you the structure a standalone course assumes.

Full Stack starts higher (from £999 Guided Flex, up to £3,495 Deep Review) than this standalone course (from £499 Guided Flex, up to £2,995 Applied Practice) but includes four certificates — Full Stack diploma + ESRS + IFRS S1/S2 + official GRI Standards Certified — plus read-mode access to the Assurance and Materiality Assessment courses. See the Full Stack programme page for the full picture. Either way, completing on a Live Cohort, 1:1, Applied Practice or Deep Review route makes you a member of the LRA Alumni Club — 30% off any future LRA course — for life (Guided Flex routes don't unlock Club membership).