Therefore, to support successful implementation of sustainability standards in the long term, companies need to be nimble and prepared to adjust the level of resources and expertise available for various sustainability topics not to fall behind on the rapidly evolving standard setting developments.
Evolution of the sustainability disclosures by integration with financial and other non-financial reporting standards
One of the ways to create a coherent and comprehensive system of corporate reporting that provides a transparent view of how a company creates value over time is to integrate sustainability reporting with financial reporting. This should improve the quality of information available to investors to enable a more efficient and productive allocation of resources. This seems to be a large and complex project that would require additional coordination with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB); but it could, in the longer term, bring about fundamental changes as to how companies report their performance to external stakeholders.
Another useful approach in the sustainability reporting evolution journey is the so-called interoperability-the capacity to connect and coordinate between other sustainability reporting standards and frameworks (both jurisdictional and voluntary), which has been identified as one of the core elements of the ISSB’s activities, fundamental to achieving the ISSB’s mission to deliver a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability-related disclosures not only to meet the needs of investors, but also to ensure high-quality disclosures by companies. Designed with a building-block approach in mind, IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards (which include IFRS S1, IFRS S2, and future standards) would allow jurisdictions to adjust their corporate reporting needs by supplementing these standards with additional disclosure requirements if necessary.
