IFRS Foundation launches sustainability working group

New collaboration aims to harmonise sustainability accounting initiatives

In a bid to fast forward convergence in global sustainability reporting standards, the trustees of the IFRS Foundation have set up a working group.

The group is aimed at structured engagement with initiatives focused on enterprise value reporting, with a view to facilitating consolidation and reducing fragmentation in sustainability reporting standards.

It will be chaired by the IFRS Foundation and include participation by the International Accounting Standards Board, given the need for connectivity with financial reporting. The international securities body, IOSCO will participate in the group as an observer.

Members of the working group, bring together complementary international experience including: 

• The Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which brings recommendations for climate-related reporting that promote more informed investment, credit and insurance underwriting decisions.
• The Value Reporting Foundation, representing the intended merger of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IRRC) and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). The organisation provides a framework for integrated reporting that connects financial and sustainability information.
• SASB also provides industry-specific standards for reporting on enterprise value.

Investor Materiality & Value Creation

A further member of the working group is the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, which has a framework guiding disclosure of material information for investors through the integration of climate information as well as wider environmental and social-related data into financial reporting.

The World Economic Forum will contribute its work on cross-industry metrics and disclosures that CEOs of a wide range of the world’s largest multinational companies have found to be important for disclosure.

Throughout this process, the working group will also engage closely with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), aimed at enabling organisations to be transparent and take responsibility for their impacts and the charity CDP, which has developed global good practice standards for environmental reporting.

The first meeting of the working group is expected to take place in April 2021, with updates on progress published on the IFRS Foundation website.

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