Philips 2014 Annual Report Download - page 213

Sustainability statements 14.4
Annual Report 2014 213
14.4 Independent Auditor’s Assurance
Report
To: The Supervisory Board of Koninklijke Philips N.V.
Our Opinion
We have audited the information in the chapter
Sustainability statements and the sections Social
performance and Environmental performance in the
Annual Report 2014 (further ‘The Sustainability
Information’) of Koninklijke Philips N.V., Eindhoven, the
Netherlands. In our opinion, The Sustainability
Information presents fairly, in all material respects, the
sustainability performance of Philips in accordance
with the reporting criteria as mentioned below.
We report, to the extent we can assess, that the
information on sustainability in the rest of the Annual
Report 2014 is consistent with The Sustainability
Information.
Basis for our opinion
We conducted our engagement in accordance with the
Dutch Standard 3810N: “Assurance engagements
relating to sustainability reports”, which is a specied
standard under the International Standard on
Assurance Engagement (ISAE) 3000: “Assurance
Engagement other than Audits or Reviews of Historical
Financial Information”.
Our responsibilities under Standard 3810N and
procedures performed have been further specied in
the paragraph titled “Our responsibility for reasonable
assurance on The Sustainability Information”.
We are independent of Koninklijke Philips N.V. in
accordance with the “Verordening inzake de
onafhankelijkheid van accountants bij assurance-
opdrachten” (ViO) and other relevant independence
requirements in The Netherlands. Furthermore we have
complied with the “Verordening gedrags- en
beroepsregels accountants” (VGBA).
We do not provide any assurance on the achievability
of the objectives, targets and expectations of Philips.
We believe that the assurance evidence we have
obtained is sucient and appropriate to provide a basis
for our opinion.
Responsibilities of the Board of Management for The
Sustainability Information
The Board of Management is responsible for the
preparation and fair presentation of The Sustainability
Information in accordance with the Sustainability
Reporting Guidelines G4 of the Global Reporting
Initiative, supported by internally developed guidelines
as described in Approach to sustainability reporting in
the chapter Sustainability statements, of this Annual
Report. It is important to view the performance data in
the context of these criteria.
As part of this, the Board of Management is responsible
for such internal control as the Board of Management
determines is necessary to enable the preparation of
The Sustainability Information that is free from material
misstatement, whether due to fraud and error.
Our responsibility for reasonable assurance on The
Sustainability Information
Our objective is to plan and perform the reasonable
assurance assignment in a manner that allows us to
obtain sucient and appropriate assurance evidence
for our opinion.
Our assurance engagement has been performed with a
high, but not absolute, level of assurance, which means
we may not have detected all errors and fraud.
Our procedures included performing a risk assessment,
assessing the appropriateness of the accounting and
other policies used, evaluating the design and
implementation, and testing the operating
eectiveness of the systems and processes for
collecting and processing the qualitative and
quantitative information in The Sustainability
Information including the implementation of these at a
number of sites, and evaluating the overall presentation
of sustainability information within our scope. Also we
held interviews with relevant management and tested
documentation on a sample basis to determine
whether the information is supported by sucient
evidence.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
February 24, 2015
KPMG Accountants N.V.
E.H.W. Weusten RA