Philips 2015 Annual Report Download - page 207

Sustainability statements 14.4
Annual Report 2015 207
14.4 Independent Auditor’s Assurance
Report
To: The Supervisory Board and Shareholders 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 2015 (further ‘The Sustainability
Information’) of Koninklijke Philips N.V. (further:
‘Philips’), 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 2015 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 Engagements (ISAE) 3000: “Assurance
Engagements 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 it determines is necessary to
enable the preparation of The Sustainability
Information that is free from material misstatement,
whether due to fraud or 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. We apply the “Nadere voorschriften
accountantskantoren ter zake van assurance
opdrachten” and accordingly maintain a
comprehensive system of quality control including
documented policies and procedures regarding
compliance with ethical requirements, professional
standards and applicable legal and regulatory
requirements.
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.
The procedures selected depend on our understanding
of The Sustainability Information and other
engagement circumstances, and our consideration of
areas where material misstatements could arise. 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 23, 2016
KPMG Accountants N.V.
E.H.W. Weusten RA