Background papers for the 36th annual ISAR meeting

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Oct 28, 2019

The thirty-sixth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR) will be held in Geneva on October 30 - November 1, 2019. One of the main agenda items discussed during the session will be the practical implementation of core indicators for entity reporting and the contribution towards the attainment of the Sustainability Development Goals.

For this agenda item, background notes have been prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat to facilitate deliberations. The paper can be downloaded from the UNCTAD website:

Since the thirty-fifth session of ISAR, UNCTAD has completed and published the Guidance on Core Indicators for Entity Reporting on Contribution towards Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The core indicators contained in the current version of the Guidance are follows:

Economic area
  • Revenue
  • Value added
  • Net value added
  • Taxes and other payments to the Government
  • Green investment
  • Community investment
  • Total expenditures on research and development
  • Percentage of local procurement

Institutional area
  • Number of board meetings and attendance rate
  • Number and percentage of women board members
  • Board members by age and range
  • Number of meetings of audit committee and attendance rate
  • Compensation: total compensation per board member (both executive and non-executive directors)
  • Amount of fines paid or payable due to settlements
  • Average number of hours of training on anti-corruption issues, per year per employee

Social area
  • Proportion of women in managerial positions
  • Average hours of training per year per employee
  • Expenditure on employee training per year per employee
  • Employee wages and benefits as a proportion of revenue, by employment type and gender
  • Expenditures on employee health and safety as a proportion of revenue
  • Frequency/incident rates of occupational injuries
  • Percentage of employees covered by collective agreements

Environmental area
  • Water recycling and reuse
  • Water use efficiency
  • Water stress
  • Reduction of waste generation
  • Waste reused, remanufactured and recycled
  • Hazardous waste
  • Greenhouse gas emissions (scope 1)
  • Greenhouse gas emissions (scope 2)
  • Ozone-depleting substances and chemicals
  • Renewable energy
  • Energy efficiency

A review of the case studies provided evidence that environmental and social indicators were more difficult to report on than economic and institutional indicators.

General information on the session including a provisional agenda for the meeting is available here.

Further publication of interest in the context of the meeting are available on the UNCTAD website:

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