It is the old cliché. What gets measured gets managed. And for a long time that has been a mantra in the field of getting to grips with greenhouse gas emissions and moves toward a lower-carbon economy. All the efforts in the fields of accounting for sustainability and integrated reporting have it at their heart. But it has been as much a cultural change as it has been a financial one. And that sort of change takes more time than people imagine at the outset. But with the publication of the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures the whole process moves forward.

Review the full article on our Global IAS Plus website.

The annual global survey from consultancy Black Sun released during a recent joint conference of the International Corporate Governance Network and the International Integrated Reporting Council indicate that ‘there is strong indication from executives that attitudes concerning business and stakeholder value creation need to change and that organizations must deliver a purpose beyond profit”. It also states that “shareholder returns will, as expected, remain crucial for business, but other factors, such as meeting customer expectations and inspiring and engaging people, will significantly grow in importance. Working for the longer-term is cited as preferable over the short-term, and doing this is thought to bring significant internal and external benefits”.

It is a world moving away from narrow measures. Mervyn King made it clear in opening session that the traditional financial measures were not up to scratch. For him the importance was that the corporate world should move from “the plague of short-term profits to value-creation in a long-term manner”. And, for most people at the conference, this meant properly run companies using the wider models of integrated reporting.

A polling on which corporate governance issue was the most important one to concentrate upon demonstrated that there was a disconnect between what was actually happening and what it was felt ought to happen. Recent government pronouncements have focused on pay and incentives and the composition of corporate boards, yet these issues attracted just 9% and 5% of the vote. The overwhelming favourite, coming in at 68%, was for getting boards to focus on long-term value and the significance of stakeholder interests.

Read the entire column on our Global IAS Plus site.

Below is an analysis of all changes made to the work plan since the last update in January 2017.

Stan­dard-set­ting and related projects

• Insurance contracts — the expected issuance of the IFRS is now marked as being expected within the next three months (May).

Nar­row-scope amend­ments

• Im­prove­ments to IFRS 8 resulting from the post-im­ple­men­ta­tion review of IFRS 8 — the expected pub­li­ca­tion of an exposure draft is now expected in March. Previously, it was expected in April.

IFRS Taxonomy

• Taxonomy update on insurance contracts — The expected issuance is now marked as being expected within the next three months (May).
• Common practice (agriculture, leisure, franchises, retail and financial institutions) — This project has completed its public consultation phase and is now in the drafting phase.

The revised IASB work plan is available on the IASB's website.

The study was conducted from November 2015 to June 2016 among all of the (then) 34 OECD countries. Of those 34 countries, 25 countries (73%) base their annual financial reports on accrual accounting, and another three countries (9%) are currently transitioning to accrual accounting. Only six countries still use cash accounting.

The study also points out that while the direct adoption of international accounting standards, such as International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), by national governments remains very low, almost 40% of the standard-setters use IPSAS (28%) or IFRS (9%) as primary or explicit references for developing their national standards.

The study 130 page study offers a short executive summary, a 15 page analysis of practices across all countries, and afterwards a detailed analysis of each country's accounting practice.

Review the study Accrual Practices and Reform Experiences in OECD Countries on the IFAC's website.