The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has published its inaugural global sustainability disclosure standards: IFRS S1 and IFRS S2.

The standards aim to help improve the trust and confidence in company disclosures about sustainability to inform investment decisions.

IFRS S1 outlines a set of disclosure requirements designed to enable companies to communicate to investors about the sustainability-related risks and opportunities they face over the short, medium and long term.

IFRS S2, meanwhile, sets out specific climate-related disclosures and is designed by be used with IFRS S1.

Both sets of standards incorporate the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

They are designed to ensure companies provide sustainability-related information alongside financial statements and have been developed to be used in conjunction with accounting requirements.

The ISSB noted that the standards have been built on the concepts that underpin the IFRS Accounting Standards and are suitable for application globally.

Following the publication of the standards, the ISSB will work with jurisdictions and companies to support their adoption, with the first steps to be creating a ‘Transition Implementation Group’ to help companies that apply the standards and launching capacity-building initiatives to support implementation.

“Today represents the outcome of more than 18 months of intense work to deliver an inaugural set of sustainability disclosure standards for the global capital markets,” said ISSB chair, Emmanuel Faber.

“The ISSB Standards have been designed to help companies tell their sustainability story in a robust, comparable and verifiable manner.

“We have consulted closely with the market to ensure the standards are proportionate and will result in disclosures that are relevant for investment decision-making.

“We know that better information leads to better economic decisions. Today’s publication is just the starting point as we consult on our future priorities, beyond climate.”

Also commenting on the standards’ publication, IFRS Foundation Trustees chair, Erkki Liikanen, stated: “The global baseline approach, supported by the G20 and others, will provide investors with globally comparable sustainability-related disclosures that have the potential to move market prices, without constraining jurisdictions from requiring additional disclosures.

“This will help companies and investors by tackling duplicative reporting.”

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