The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) was officially launched by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation today at the COP26 climate conference. As a SASB Materiality Map® and full standards licensee, Greenstone is pleased to share this landmark announcement regarding the future of centralised and universally uniform sustainability-related corporate disclosure.
The following press release was recently published on the Value Reporting Foundation website:
As world leaders meet in Glasgow for COP26, the UN global summit to address the critical and urgent issue of climate change, the IFRS Foundation Trustees (Trustees) announce three significant developments to provide the global financial markets with high-quality disclosures on climate and other sustainability issues:
- The formation of a new International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to develop—in the public interest—a comprehensive global baseline of high-quality sustainability disclosure standards to meet investors’ information needs;
- A commitment by leading investor-focused sustainability disclosure organisations to consolidate into the new board. The IFRS Foundation will complete consolidation of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB—an initiative of CDP) and the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF—which houses the Integrated Reporting Framework and the SASB Standards) by June 2022;
- The publication of prototype climate and general disclosure requirements developed by the Technical Readiness Working Group (TRWG), a group formed by the IFRS Foundation Trustees to undertake preparatory work for the ISSB. These prototypes are the result of six months of joint work by representatives of the CDSB, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the VRF and the World Economic Forum (Forum), supported by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and its Technical Expert Group of securities regulators. The TRWG has consolidated key aspects of these organisations’ content into an enhanced, unified set of recommendations for consideration by the ISSB.
Together, these developments create the necessary institutional arrangements, set out in the Foundation’s revised Constitution [link], and lay the technical groundwork for a global sustainability disclosure standard-setter for the financial markets. They fulfil the growing and urgent demand for streamlining and formalising corporate sustainability disclosures.
The ISSB will sit alongside and work in close cooperation with the IASB, ensuring connectivity and compatibility between IFRS Accounting Standards and the ISSB’s standards—IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. To ensure public interest legitimacy, both boards will be overseen by the Trustees, who are in turn accountable to a Monitoring Board of capital market authorities responsible for corporate reporting in their jurisdictions. The ISSB and the IASB will be independent, and their standards will complement each other to provide comprehensive information to investors and other providers of capital.
About the Value Reporting Foundation
The Value Reporting Foundation is a global non-profit organization that offers a comprehensive suite of resources designed to help businesses and investors develop a shared understanding of enterprise value—how it is created, preserved or eroded over time. The resources — including Integrated Thinking Principles, the Integrated Reporting Framework and SASB Standards — can be used alone or in combination, depending on business needs. These tools, already adopted in over 70 countries, comprise the 21st-century market infrastructure needed to develop, manage and communicate a strategy that creates long-term value and drives improved performance.
To view the full press release, please visit the Value Reporting Foundation website.
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