The guide is designed to help organisations understand what activities can have an impact, whether positive or negative, on the rights of people with disabilities, and which GRI disclosures can be used as the basis for reporting on those impacts. It can enhance organisational understanding of the value of transparency on disability, in terms of creating inclusive workplaces, as well as taking advantage of the business case of disability for the development of new products, services and physical environments. The guide also features a number of case studies from businesses all over the world that are making commitments and working to improve their disability related impacts.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures are increasingly required by governments and stock exchanges around the world, for example by the new 2014 European Union Directive on disclosure of non-financial and diversity information (the European Social Fund of the European Union is a co-sponsor of the guide). Accordingly, the Disability in Sustainability Reporting also contains a section with additional resources on CSR and human rights reporting.

Please click to download the guide from the GRI website. It is available in English and Spanish.

The 2015 taxonomy is con­sis­tent with IFRSs as issued by the IASB at 1 January 2015 and IFRS for Small and Medium-sized Entities as issued on 9 July 2009. The IFRS Taxonomy 2015 includes IFRS Taxonomy Interim Release 1 (issued May 2014) and Interim Release 2 (issued November 2014). In addition, the final changes in proposed Interim Release 3 (issued December 2014) have been incorporated into the 2015 taxonomy.

For more information, see the press release and the IFRS Taxonomy 2015 page on the IASB's website.

The survey covers financial statements of 132 top IFIs from 31 jurisdictions around the world. In addition to identifying the financial reporting standards that the IFIs are legally required to comply with and the extent of compliance, the survey also noted the accounting treatment of selected Islamic financial transactions where past experience has shown that there are significant differences between the requirements under IFRS and the accounting standards issued by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI). Areas of focus were:

• Lessor accounting for ijarah with an arrangement to transfer ownership;
• Classification of customer investment accounts; and
• Recognition and measurement of finance income.

Of the sampled IFIs, more IFIs apply IFRSs than AAOIFI standards: 46% stated compliance with IFRSs or IFRS as adopted for their jurisdiction (for example, IFRSs as adopted for the use in the EU), while only 18% stated compliance with the standards issued by AAOIFI. A large portion of IFIs (34% of the sample) complied with a local reporting framework.

However, regardless of the standards complied with, the study noted differing treatments in three main areas: ijarah, customer investment accounts and recognition and measurement of finance income. Reasons behind this were differing interpretation of the requirements and/or a market regulator or central bank may over-riding a requirement determined by an accounting standard-setter.

The study's overall conclusion is that the AOSSG may need to engage with regulators and central banks to promote the use of IFRS by IFIs.

Please click for access to the study on the AOSSG website. It offers a general survey of the standards applied and the treatment of the three areas of focus for the whole sample as well as findings listed by jurisdiction. Jurisdictions covered are Albania, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Brunei, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritius, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Yemen.

The guides have been developed by the A4S Chief Financial Officer Leadership Network, which was launched in December 2013. The Network brings together a select group of leading CFOs from large European businesses seeking to embed the management of environmental and social issues into business processes and strategy. Therefore, each guide is supported by case studies from Network members to demonstrate practical applications of the approaches and techniques set out in the guides. The guides are:

• Natural and social capital accounting. This guide explains the key terms of natural and social capital accounting, the benefits of broadening accounting frameworks, and the challenges of converting natural and social capital impacts and dependencies into financial figures.
• Enhancing investor engagement. This guide is intended to assist with investor relations and covers ideas such as moving away from quarterly reporting of financial results and instead incorporating sustainability information into investor presentations.
• Managing future uncertainty. This guide offers an introduction to integrating risks resulting from macro sustainability trends into business decision making and explains how to overcome some of the uncertainty associated with the impact of these risks.
• CAPEX. This guide outlines how businesses can adapt their existing capital investment appraisal processes to integrate social and environmental issues and shows how traditional investment decisions can be broadened and made more cost-effective and resilient.

The four guides can be downloaded from the A4S website. The CFO Network plans to publish further case studies and to develop additional guidance, including on integrated management reporting and on embedding sustainability into budgeting and forecasting.

The overview offers information for 44 jurisdictions and includes developments from as early as the eighties and nineties until 2014 and 2015. Examples of newest developments covered are the European Union Directive on disclosure of non-financial and diversity information, the Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) Sukuk framework of the Malaysian Securities Commission, and the Corporate Governance Rating System of the Nigerian Stock Exchange that will rank NSE-listed companies based on their corporate governance practices and anti-corruption policies.

The IRI, located at the Hauser Institute for Civil Society at Harvard Kennedy School, was founded to provide institutional support for catalytic activity for responsible investment with a strong focus on creating a foundation of research activity around the field. To do this, it conducts research and releases publications on the metrics, theory and evolving practices of responsible investors.

Please click to access the overview on the IRI website. It builds on a working paper that offers more detailed descriptions of the various initiatives, a comprehensive resource section as well as a brief list of some important developments that are expected to materialize in the near future.

The full agenda for the meeting, dated 6 March 2015, can be found here.  We will post any updates to the agenda, and our Deloitte observer notes from the meeting, on this page as they are available.

Retraction of a previous editorial correction affects the following standard:

• IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures

Editorial cor­rec­tions to con­se­quen­tial amend­ments affect the following standards:

• IFRS 9 Financial In­stru­ments
• Novation of Derivatives and Continuation of Hedge Accounting (Amendments to IAS 39)
• IFRS 13 Fair Value Measurement

Editorial cor­rec­tions affect the following in­di­vid­ual pro­nounce­ments:

• IFRS 9 Financial In­stru­ments
• IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts With Customers
• Defined Benefits Plans: Employee Contributions (Amendments to IAS 19)

Editorial cor­rec­tions to the 2014 IFRS (Red Book), A Guide through IFRS 2014 and 2015 IFRS (Blue Book) affect the following standards:

• IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures
• IFRIC 9 Reassessment of Embedded Derivatives

Editorial cor­rec­tions do not change the meaning or ap­pli­ca­tion of pro­nounce­ments, but instead correct in­ad­ver­tent errors. Full details of the editorial cor­rec­tions are available on the IASB website.

The 'Red Book' contains all official pronouncements that have an effective date after 1 January 2015. Accordingly, the 2015 includes the following changes made since 1 January 2014: IFRS 9 Financial Instruments, IFRS 14 Regulatory Deferral Accounts, IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers, Annual Improvements to IFRSs 2012–2014 Cycle, as well as amendments to IFRS 10, IFRS 11, IFRS 12, IAS 1, IAS 16, IAS 27, IAS 28, IAS 38, and IAS 41.

eIFRS and Com­pre­hen­sive sub­scribers can now access the elec­tronic files of the 2015 IFRS (Red Book) via the Latest Additions section of eIFRS (you will be required to provide your login details).

The Red Book is also available through the IASB's Web Shop. Copies are priced at £70 each, plus shipping. Discounts are available for multiple copies, academics/students and residents of middle and low-in­come countries.

The study is based on 16 interviews with investors, researchers and standard-setters. Human capital is defined in the study as “the value of people at work and their collective knowledge, skills, abilities and capacity to develop and innovate”.  Human capital management is the process which "enables organisations to make more productive use of their people through measurements, analysis and evaluation".  Human capital management reporting refers to quantitative and qualitative information reporting on these activities.  

The research report highlights that whilst some organisations do present people-related data in their annual reports “very few” actually describe how this information links into value-creation for their business. 

The research report also indicates that “respondents believe that company reporting on HCM should be promoted and improved” and “that the quality of HCM reporting is not as good as it should be”; although no respondents indicated a desire to include the value of human capital on a company’s balance sheet.   The research concludes that:

It’s evident that investors want to use HCM data in combination with other perspectives on company performance to develop a more holistic view of their investments.

A number of barriers to HCM reporting such as confusion over HCM terminology and measures and also a lack of encouragement from investors for better quality HCM reporting  are highlighted in the research report.  Significantly, the research report indicates that investors “don’t recognise this information as powerful and pertinent”.  Investors do, however, consider that four key metrics (total cost of workforce employed, recruitment costs, total investment in training and development and employee engagement survey scores) proposed to standardise external HCM reporting represented “a step forward in CM reporting”.

In light of the findings and perceived barriers to HCM reporting, the research report offers a series of recommendations for both increasing demand among investors and for improving reporting practice.  It is hoped that this reported information will then “improve decision-making, justify investments in people, and demonstrate to external stakeholders [that organisations] are led and managed for the long-term”.    

The research report provides recommendations under a number of headings:

• what interest investors can do;
• what asset owners can do;
• what gatekeepers can do;
• what professional education bodies can do;
• what reporting companies can do; and
• what policy-makers and government can do.

The full report can be downloaded from the CIPD website.

In the first paper, the ASBJ provides its view on the IASB's tentative decisions regarding identification, description and categorisation of measurement bases. The ASBJ believes that the IASB's tentative decision to have a binary classification (classifying measurement bases into historical cost and current value) is insufficient. Therefore, the ASBJ suggests an alternative approach that would classify measurement bases on the basis of (a) whether inputs for measurements need to be updated (the ASBJ envisions three categories: fully-updated inputs, partially-updated inputs, and locked-in inputs) and (b) whether market participants assumptions or entity-specific assumptions need to be adopted when measuring an asset or a liability.

In the second paper, the ASBJ underlines its view that the nature of an entity's business activities has significant effect on various aspects of accounting standard-setting and that there should be an overarching description in the Conceptual Framework that should be applied consistently throughout the standard-setting process. The ASBJ thus disagrees with the IASB's tentative decision that the forthcoming Exposure Draft of possibles changes to the Conceptual Framework should not provide a single over-arching description of how the nature of an entity's business activities would affect standard-setting. In the paper, the ASBJ identifies questions that need to be ansered in this context and suggests principles for classifying and describing the nature of an entity's business activity.

Both papers can be accessed through the press release on the ASBJ website.