ÖBB Annual Report 2023

320 Vorstand I Aufsichtsrat I Österreich bewegen I Corporate Governance I Konzernlagebericht I Konzernabschluss 8 The sole purpose of the assurance is to support ÖBB Holding in fulfilling its reporting and assurance obligations. We have performed all the procedures deemed necessary to obtain the evidence that is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our conclusions: „ Obtaining an overall view of the industry as well as its organizational and operational structure; „ Conducting interviews with management and responsible employees to identify and understand relevant systems, processes and internal controls related to the assured report content that support the collection of information for reporting; „ Review of relevant documents at Group, Board and management level to assess awareness and priority of issues in consolidated non-financial reporting and to understand how progress is monitored; „ Examine risk management and governance processes in relation to sustainability and critical evaluation of the disclosure in the reporting; „ Performing analytical assessment at group level; „ Assessment and, where appropriate, review of the data and processes on a sample basis to determine whether they are appropriately applied, consolidated, and reported at the group level. This includes evaluating whether the data are reported in an accurate, reliable, and complete manner; „ Assessment of the reporting on material topics that were raised during stakeholder dialogues, reported on in the media, and addressed by key competitors in their environmental and social reports; „ Evaluation of the materiality analysis, including industry-specific megatrends and aspects of GRI; „ Assessment of whether the requirements pursuant to § 267a UGB have been adequately addressed; „ Sample-based review of the statements in the consolidated non-financial report 2023 based on the reporting principles of the GRI Universal Standards 2021; „ Assessment of whether the requirements of Article 8 of the EU Taxonomy Regulation have been adequately addressed. Delimitation of the scope of services: „ Previous year's figures were generally not audited unless this was necessary for plausibility checks. „ We did not review the results of external studies and certifications, but rather the correct inclusion of this data or content in the report. The scope of our engagement did not include an assurance of financial statements or a review of historical financial information. We did not assurance the performance indicators and statements assured as part of the assurance of the annual financial statements or information from the Federal Public Corporate Governance Report and the risk reporting. We only examined the GRI-compliant presentation of this information in the reporting. Similarly, neither the detection and clarification of criminal offenses, such as embezzlement or other acts of misappropriation and administrative offenses, nor the assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of the Executive Board were the subject of our engage- ment. Furthermore, figures taken from external studies, future-related information and prior-year figures were not the subject of our engagement. The references listed in the GRI content index were checked in the report, but no further (web) references were checked.