Contents Foreword Management report Corporate governance
Consolidated Financial Statements
Company Financial Statements
Pillar 3
Procedures performed
We have exercised professional judgement and have
maintained professional scepticism throughout the assurance
engagement, in accordance with the Dutch Standard 3810N,
ethical requirements and independence requirements.
Our main review procedures included:
Performing an external environment analysis and obtaining
insight into relevant social themes and issues, and the
characteristics of the organization;
Evaluating the appropriateness of the reporting policy and
its consistent application, including the evaluation of the
results of the stakeholders' dialog and the reasonableness of
management's estimates.
Evaluating the design and implementation of the reporting
systems and processes related to the Sustainability
Statements in the Annual Report 2016;
Interviewing management and relevant staff at corporate
and branch level responsible for the sustainability strategy
and policies;
Interviewing relevant staff responsible for providing
sustainability information, carrying out internal control
procedures on the data and consolidating the data included
the Sustainability Statements.
An analytical review of the data and trends submitted for
consolidation at corporate level.
Joining the internal audit department in meetings with the
business and other locations;
Reviewing internal and external documentation to
determine whether the sustainability information, including
the disclosure, presentation and assertions made in the
Sustainability Statements is substantiated adequately;
Assessing the consistency of the Sustainability Statements
and the information included in the Annual Report 2016
which is not in scope for this assurance report;
Assessing whether the Sustainability Statements have been
prepared in accordance with the sustainability reporting
Guidelines version G4 of GRI and the internally applied
reporting criteria as described in Appendix 1:'About this
report' and Appendix 2: 'Sustainably Successful Together';
Reviewing the relevant work of the Internal Audit function;
and
Discussing our observations with management.
In addition to the procedures mentioned above, we performed
the following audit procedures on the fourteen sustainability
key performance indicators in the tables on the pages 125 - 128
and Appendix 3 on the pages 129 - 134, included amongst
others:
Identifying and assessing the risks of material misstatement
of the Sustainability Statements, whether due to fraud or
error, designing and performing audit procedures responsive
to those risks, and obtaining audit evidence that is sufficient
and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion. The risk of
not detecting a material misstatement resulting from fraud
is higher than one resulting from errors, as fraud may involve
collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations,
or the override of internal control;
Evaluating the design and implementation of the reporting
systems and processes related to the sustainability
information;
Evaluating the overall presentation, structure and content of
the Sustainability Statements, including the disclosures;
Testing relevant data and internal and external
documentation, on a sample basis, to determine the reliability
of the information in the information in the Sustainability
Statements;
Attending a number of local Rabobanks of Rabobank in
order to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of the source
information provided by the local Rabobanks to Rabobank.
Amsterdam, 8 March 2017
PricewaterhouseCoopers Accountants N.V.
Original has been signed by PJ. van Mierlo RA
121 Assurance report of the independent auditor
