Independent auditor's
assurance report
Contents Management report Corporate governance Consolidated financial statements Financial statements Pillar 3
To: The readers of the Annual Report 2015 Rabobank Group
Our opinion
We have audited the sustainability information included in the
section Corporate social responsibility report (on pages 51-85
and the Appendices to the corporate social responsibility report
2015 (on pages 126-151)) (hereafter together: 'the Report') of
Rabobank Group (hereafter: 'Rabobank') except for the sources
and documents that are referred to.
In our opinion, the Report presents, in all material respects, the
sustainability performance of Rabobank in accordance with
the GRI G4 Guidelines as described in Appendix 1 Reporting
principles.
Our report on consistency
We report, to the extent we can assess, that the sustainability
information in the rest of the Annual Report 2015 is consistent
with sustainability information in the Report.
Basis for our opinion
We conducted our engagement in accordance with the
Dutch Standard 381 ON: 'Assurance engagements relating to
sustainability reports', which is a specified standard that is based
on the International Standard on Assurance Engagement (ISAE)
3000: 'Assurance Engagement other than Audits or Reviews of
Historical Financial Information'.
We do not provide any assurance on the achievability of the
objectives, targets and expectations of Rabobank.
Our responsibilities under Standard 381 ON and procedures
performed have been further specified in the paragraph titled
'Our responsibility for the audit of the Report'.
We are independent of Rabobank Group 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 believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is
sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.
Key assurance matters
Key assurance matters are those matters that, in our professional
judgment, were of most significance in our audit approach for
the Report. We have communicated the key assurance matters
to the Supervisory Board. The key assurance matters are not
a comprehensive reflection of all matters discussed.
These key assurance matters were addressed in the context
of our audit of the Report as a whole and in forming our
opinion thereon, and we do not provide a separate opinion on
these matters.
Implementation of the Sustainably Successful Together
strategy and the reporting thereof through core KPIs
Observation - Rabobank has defined its sustainability ambitions
in its Sustainably Successful Together strategy.The pillars of
this strategy provide the basis for the sustainability reporting
structure. In context of this strategy, Rabobank started
quantitatively reporting on its progress against its ambitions
through core KPIs. As stakeholders should obtain a balanced view
of the progress reported, and this being the first year Rabobank
includes its core KPIs in the Report, the status of implementing
this strategy into the regular management cycle of the various
group divisions of the bank was a key assurance matter.
Response - We specifically examined the reporting process
regarding the core KPIs from the Sustainably Successful
Together strategy. We conducted interviews with management
of various group divisions in orderto determine the
various degrees of strategy implementation. Furthermore,
we assessed the reporting processes for core KPIs in their
design, implementation and operation, and we reconciled
reported outcomes with underlying documentation. Finally,
we compared the presentation of the implementation
of Sustainably Successful Together in the Report with
our outcomes.
Evaluation - We found that the results presented are sufficiently
supported by underlying evidence.
123 Independent auditor's assurance report
