Hangonghoe Releases Korean Translation of International Sustainability Certification Ethical Standards (IESSA)

The Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants (KICPA) announced on the 6th that it has released the Korean translation of the public draft of the International Sustainability Assurance Ethics Standard (IESSA), which was published by the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) in January this year. The Korean translation of the IESSA draft can be downloaded from the KICPA website.

Since 2005, KICPA has signed translation contracts for the international ethics standards established by IESBA and has reflected them in the ethical standards for certified public accountants in Korea. From the beginning of this year, KICPA consulted with the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) to translate the IESSA public draft into Korean and officially signed the Korean translation contract last July.

As a professional certification organization with over 180 member bodies located in 135 countries worldwide, KICPA holds copyrights for global certification standards such as the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) and global ethics standards such as the International Ethics Standards.

The IESSA public draft established by IESBA is a global ethics standard that applies not only to certified public accountants but also to sustainability assurance practitioners who are not certified public accountants.

The copyright for the IESSA public draft is held by IFAC. IESBA plans to release the final version in early 2025 after reflecting the opinions of certified public accountants and stakeholders worldwide on the IESSA public draft.

The public draft translated by KICPA this time consists of an ethics code part addressing issues such as conflicts of interest and confidentiality that may arise in sustainability assurance work, and an independence standards part that sustainability assurance practitioners must comply with when performing non-assurance services. It is expected to help resolve ethical and independence issues in sustainability assurance work, which will be important both domestically and internationally in the future.

Going forward, KICPA plans to actively communicate with IFAC and IESBA to ensure that not only the final version of the International Sustainability Assurance Ethics Standard (IESSA) but also the final version of the International Sustainability Assurance Standard (ISSA 5000) are promptly introduced domestically once they are published.