IOSCO report on sustainability-related disclosures, speech by IOSCO Chair

  • IOSCO Image
  • Leaf - sustainability (green) Image

Jun 29, 2021

The Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has published a report on issuers’ sustainability-related disclosures that elaborates on IOSCO's vision and expectations for the IFRS Foundation’s work towards a global baseline of investor-focused sustainability standards to improve the global consistency, comparability and reliability of sustainability reporting. In addition, the manuscript of a speech by IOSCO Chair Ashley Alder on the 'crucial' IFRS global baseline has been made available.

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:

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

Correction list for hyphenation

These words serve as exceptions. Once entered, they are only hyphenated at the specified hyphenation points. Each word should be on a separate line.