On 25 March 2021, the IASB issued the ED that contains proposed guidance for itself when developing and drafting disclosure requirements in IFRSs in future as well as proposed amendments to IFRS 13 'Fair Value Measurement' and IAS 19 'Employee Benefits' that result from applying the proposed guidance to those standards.

The workshop provided an overview of the ED and was hosted by EAA President Thorsten Sellhorn with a presentation by the Board’s technical staff and EFRAG; an academic perspective from Vicky Kiosse (University of Exeter), Paul André (HEC Lausanne) and Andrei Filip (ESSEC Business School); and a Q&A session addressed by the presenters and Board Member Ann Tarca.

Recording of the pre­sen­ta­tion as well as the slide deck are now available on the IASB website.

The 2021 update is available in a clean version and a version with track changes (both links to the ESMA website).

The communique notes that the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors welcome the FSB report on promoting globally consistent, comparable and reliable climate-related financial disclosures and its recommendations. They stress that they will work to promote implementation of disclosure requirements or guidance, building on the FSB’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework, in line with domestic regulatory frameworks, to pave the way for future global coordination efforts, taking into account jurisdictions’ circumstances, aimed at developing a baseline global reporting standard. The communiqué notes:

To that aim, we welcome the work programme of the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation to develop a baseline global reporting standard under robust governance and public oversight, building upon the TCFD framework and the work of sustainability standard-setters, involving them and consulting with a wide range of stakeholders to foster global best practices.

The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors expressly welcome the FSB roadmap for addressing financial risks from climate change submitted to them on 7 July 2021.

Please click to access the full communiqué on the G20 website.

The IFRS Foundation has responded to the Communiqué and has published on its website a statement by Erkki Liikanen, Chair of the IFRS Foundation Trustees.

During the meeting, the IASB will discuss the following:

• Post-implementation review of IFRS 9
• Maintenance and consistent application
• Goodwill and impairment
• Post-implementation review of IFRS 10-12
• Taxonomy — Proposed IFRS Taxonomy Update 2021
• Disclosure initiative — Targeted standards-level review of disclosures
• Primary financial statements

Together with the FASB, the IASB will discuss the following:

• Supply chain financing
• Agenda consultation
• Goodwill and impairment

The full agenda for the meeting can be found here. We will post any updates to the agenda, our comprehensive pre-meeting summaries, as well as observer notes from the meeting on this page as they become available.

The topics discussed at the meeting included:

• Agenda consultation
• Targeted standards-level review of disclosures
• Management commentary
• IASB Update
• Update on the IFRS Foundation Trustees' project on sustainability reporting

The meeting summary is available on the IASB website. In addition, the meeting page offers recordings of all topics.

The next CMAC meeting will be held on 11 November 2021. The next GPF meeting is proposed to be held on 12 November 2021.

On the draft CSRD, Accountancy Europe notes that common standards for sustainability reporting need to be set quickly as such European standards will also provide the necessary basis for digitisation and assurance. However, Accountancy Europe emphasises the need for coordination of the different sustainability reporting initiatives:

It is important for the EC to build on globally accepted standards and contribute to international convergence, especially with the IFRS Foundation’s global sustainability reporting standards in development. Ultimately, consolidated global standards would be best to meet investors’ and capital markets’ needs for information comparability whilst minimising duplications and unnecessary costs.

The same argument is brought forward in Accountancy Europe's newly released publication A constructive two-way cooperation to Sustainability reporting standard-setting. The publication notes that EFRAG and the IFRS Foundation should coordinate and work together as early as possible to produce aligned standards and to avoid duplications and unnecessary costs. It states:

The EC, EFRAG, and the IFRS Foundation with its International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have been working together on the financial reporting agenda since 2002. As EFRAG is now expanding its role to standard-setting, this cooperation should be extended to sustainability reporting standard-setting.

Please click to access the following information on the Accountancy Europe website:

• Feedback on the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive proposal
• A constructive two-way cooperation to Sustainability reporting standard-setting

In addition, the press release on recent developments contains a list of the members of the Project Task Force for beginning with the development of standards (renamed PTF-ESRS) and a list of the members of a Secretariat set up in order to provide technical expertise, project management and drafting input.

Please click for the following additional information:

• EFRAG press release on recent developments regarding ESRS
• EFRAG press release the Statement of Cooperation signed with GRI
• GRI press release the Statement of Cooperation signed with EFRAG

The roadmap, which is accompanied by several document, including a report on promoting climate-related disclosures, notes that the goal of international initiatives in the area of financial disclosures must be to achieve globally consistent, comparable, and decision-useful public disclosures by firms of their climate-related financial risks. To further this overall goal, establishing international standards is important, including accommodating interoperability between a global baseline of international standards and national and regional jurisdiction-specific requirements. Therefore, the FSB welcomes the IFRS Foundation’s programme of work to develop a baseline global sustainability reporting standard under robust governance and public oversight, built from the TCFD framework and the work of an alliance of sustainability standard-setters, involving them and a wider range of stakeholders closely, including national and regional authorities.

The FSB surveyed its members in the first half of 2021 to explore national/regional practices (current or planned) of financial authorities on promoting climate-related disclosures. The survey responses indicated that most jurisdictions strongly support the development of a common global baseline of international reporting standards on climate, with many referencing the ongoing work of the IFRS Foundation. They also signalled that international coordination on requirements to climate-related disclosures is critical and that regulatory and supervisory fragmentation must be prevented.

The roadmap notes that the FSB can play an important role in global coordination, including promoting adoption of the anticipated international reporting standards developed by the ISSB, once developed and if endorsed, as a global baseline. Such internationally agreed standards for disclosures as a global baseline would not preclude authorities from going further or at a faster pace in their jurisdictions. The FSB states that it will continue to act as an international forum for sharing experiences across jurisdictions, promoting best practices, and contribute to discussions in other international fora (such as through COP26 and G7 / G20 meetings) and will continue to support the IFRS Foundation’s work to develop a proposal for a baseline global sustainability reporting standard under robust governance and public oversight. As part of this work, the FSB encourages the IFRS Foundation to address the connectivity between proposed sustainability reporting standards to be developed by the ISSB and existing financial accounting standards. Conditional on the endorsement of this standard, the FSB will encourage FSB member jurisdictions to consider the ISSB’s standard for use for cross-border purposes and when setting sustainability-related disclosure requirements, within the context of individual jurisdictions’ regulatory and legal requirements and in a way that promotes consistent and comparable sustainability disclosures across jurisdictions.

The actions and deliverables are described in detail in the roadmap with an indicative timeline for each of these actions and deliverables provided in tabular format on page 12 of the document. Please click for the following additional information on the FSB website:

• FSB Roadmap for Addressing Climate-Related Financial Risks
• Report on Promoting Climate-Related Disclosures
• Access to additional documents published

As a result of its work and outreach, the FRC has identified a number of challenges that have been grouped into six stages:

• Production — better internal information leads to better decisions and better insight for stakeholders;
• Audit and assurance — reported information is robust and reliable;
• Distribution — information is made accessible to interested parties;
• Consumption — this information leads to better decision making by stakeholders;
• Supervision — information and activity is appropriately monitored and requirements are enforced;
• Regulation — coordinated and coherent regulation leads to efficiency.

For the challenges that must be met in each stage, the paper then explains what the FRC intends to achieve by coordinating within the UK and internationally, by connecting with others across the international environment to foster solutions that are proportionate and effective and by contributing to the discussion through thought leadership, experimentation and coordinated policy consultation responses.

Please click to access the FRC Statement of Intent on Environmental, Social and Governance challenges on the FRC website.

There were two sessions of the webinar, and recordings of them are now available on the IASB website. The slides used during the presentation are also available.