The report, developed by IOSCO’s Sus­tain­able Finance Taskforce (STF), re­it­er­ates the urgent need to improve the con­sis­tency, com­pa­ra­bil­ity and re­li­a­bil­ity of sus­tain­abil­ity reporting for investors. It describes IOSCO’s en­gage­ment with the IFRS Foun­da­tion’s efforts to develop a common set of global sus­tain­abil­ity standards to help meet investor needs and to set a sound baseline for ju­ris­dic­tions to consider when setting or im­ple­ment­ing their sus­tain­abil­ity-re­lated dis­clo­sure re­quire­ments. It notes:

IOSCO recognizes that in­di­vid­ual ju­ris­dic­tions have different domestic arrange­ments for adopting, applying or otherwise availing of international standards. It will be important for in­di­vid­ual ju­ris­dic­tions to consider how the common global baseline of standards might be adopted, applied or otherwise utilized within the context of these arrange­ments and wider legal and reg­u­la­tory frame­works, in a way that promotes con­sis­tent, com­pa­ra­ble and reliable sus­tain­abil­ity dis­clo­sures across ju­ris­dic­tions.

In a speech given at City Week 2021 on June 23,  2021, IOSCO Chair Ashley Alder stressed the same point:

Within IOSCO, we fully accept that ju­ris­dic­tional-level ap­proaches are bound to differ. But for corporate reporting, it is essential that these domestic ap­proaches will be fully in­ter­op­er­a­ble with the emerging global baseline, avoiding the rule conflicts or overlaps that could devalue the overall effort. We cannot work in ju­ris­dic­tional silos when the climate emergency does not respect national bound­aries. It is ab­solutely essential that we resist frag­men­ta­tion, which is a real risk all reg­u­la­tors are very aware of.

Please click for the following ad­di­tional in­for­ma­tion:

• IOSCO press release with a summary of the key messages of the new report (link to IOSCO website)
• Full report (72 pages, link to IOSCO website)
• Tran­script of Mr. Alder's speech (link to the website of the Se­cu­ri­ties and Futures Com­mis­sion of Hong Kong)

In addition, the International Fed­er­a­tion of Ac­coun­tants (IFAC) has published a statement sup­port­ing IOSCO's approach (link to IFAC website).