Accredited Auditors

Once your SDD, claim and the associated model are ready, an independent 3rd-party need to intervene. Below, you can find the list of auditors that are accredited by the Climate Dividends Association, as well as their contact.

What are the criteria to be accredited as an Auditor?

Official rule from the Protocol

1. Identity of Auditors

The validation of SDD and the verification of Claim are done by independent third parties, also known as Auditors.

An Auditor is an independent third-party that has been accredited by the Climate Dividends Association following the requirements in Appendix 2 and can demonstrate experience in environmental auditing.

By accepting the Verification and Validation (VV) assignment, the external auditor agrees to:

• Declare whether impartiality and independence are compromised

• Sign a NDA with the Climate Dividends Association and respect confidentiality clauses

• Accept that the results of the verification and validation will be disclosed associated with the name of the Verifier and those of the people involved in the VV.

2. Intervention of Auditors

The Auditors role as an independent third-party is key to guarantee long-term credibility of the Climate Dividends. It guarantees the transparency and seriousness of the methodology used in the SDDs, provides a validity period, and supervises the Claims.

The Auditors also guarantee a standardised and comparable way of working across all companies claiming Climate Dividends.

The Validators intervene at the SDD stage, whereas the Verifiers’ role is to evaluate the Claim, i.e. the positive climate impact calculation eligible for Climate Dividends for the given year. A single organisation can do both.

The validation issued by the auditor contains the following:

• Validation of the SDD (which contains the positive climate impact methodology, compliance with the Climate Dividends Protocol and the sectoral methodology, detailed information about the Solution, and finally the PCF of the Solution) ;

• Validity period for the given Solution (by default, 5 years)

• Further details on what the validity period encompasses:

  • Stable inputs which will not be reevaluated during the validity period, and

  • Evolving inputs which will be subject to change during this period, such as operational data, baseline and baseline data, or attribution key.

Verifier issues an opinion on the Claim and its computational details, which includes the above mentioned evolving inputs.

If the Contributing Entity has several Solutions eligible for Climate Dividends, the same Auditor should validate all the SDDs and verify the impact calculations to ensure that there is no overlap or oversight between the different Solutions.

However, if the Contributing Entity has several Solutions with very different scopes (for example within different geographies), for which having the same Auditor is not possible, then different third-parties can be authorized. Additionally, the Contributing Entity can also change its Verifier for the next Claims (next year) during the same validity period.

Appendix #2 from the Protocol

To be accredited by the Climate Dividends Association, Auditors must:

• Have validated the Climate Dividends accreditation course

• Justify an ISO 17029 accreditation or equivalent (i.e. ISO 14065) or be able to conduct a CSRD audit according to their local regulations

Name	Can intervene on	Points of contact
Verifavia	Protocol V2Protocol V3	Patricia Pinilla - [e-mail]
Goodwill Management - Baker Tilly	Protocol V2Protocol V3	Chloé Deschamps - [e-mail]
KPMG	Protocol V2Protocol V3	Maud Danel-Fedou - [e-mail] Marie-Astrid Humbert - [e-mail]
Socotec	Protocol V2Protocol V3	Valery Marmet - [e-mail]
Mazars	Protocol V2Protocol V3	Edwige Rey - [e-mail] Anne-Estelle Mifsud - [e-mail]
Nexia	Protocol V3	Sandrine Gimat - [e-mail]
Forvis Mazars	Protocol V2Protocol V3	Edwige Rey - Sustainable partner, [e-mail]
Apave	Protocol V3	Marc Antoine Horenfeld - [e-mail] Fanny Fleuriot [e-mail]
Arthaud & Associés Atlantique (Aucentur)	Protocol V3	Laurence Versaille [e-mail]
PwC	Protocol V3	Carl Jouaneau [e-mail] Aurélie Castellino [e-mail]