The government, along with 36 international partners from six continents, has welcomed and joined a newly established International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).
The new board was established by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) foundation today, November 3, at COP26.
The aim of the ISSB is to develop a comprehensive, global baseline for sustainability reporting standards, under robust governance and public oversight.
This information will be available on a voluntary basis, i.e. for investors or companies to review a business’ progress, or adopted for jurisdictions, i.e. governments.
Setting the standards
The IFRS foundation has published two prototype standards to help the newly-formed ISSB to build upon existing frameworks when developing its standards.
The standards set will be subject to full public consultation and can be considered for adoption by jurisdictions on a voluntary basis.
Jurisdictions will have their own legal frameworks for adopting, applying or otherwise making use of international standards.
The jurisdictions are as follows:
Australia; Brazil; Canada; Chile; China; Egypt; Ethiopia; European Commission; Fiji; France; Germany; Greece; Guatemala; India; Indonesia; Italy; Jamaica; Japan; Kenya; Korea; Luxembourg; Mexico; Morocco; Netherlands; New Zealand; Nigeria; Philippines; Saudi Arabia; Seychelles; Singapore; Spain; Switzerland; Tonga; Turkey; UK; Uruguay; and the US.
During a speech at the COP26 Finance Day Presidency event ‘A Financial System for Net Zero’, chair of the IFRS foundation trustees Erkki Liikanen said the ISSB will have office across different continents.
“The ISSB will have a global footprint and presence through offices in the Americas, Asia and the EMEA (Europe, the Middle-East and Africa) region,” he said.
