ISSB sustainability disclosure standards published: the global solution to lack of comparability across various existing disclosure standards?

On 31 March, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) - which was established by the IFRS Foundation during COP26 of last year - launched a public consultation of its proposed sustainability and climate related disclosure standards, with the aim to publish the final version by the end of 2022.

The draft disclosure standards intend to provide a global solution to the lack of clarity and comparability with respect to current sustainability reporting by building on the widely-used Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and incorporating the SASB industry-based disclosure requirement recommendations.

It is expected that these draft disclosure standards will be voluntary adopted by corporates, investors and financial institutions ahead of being mandatory required (when they are adopted by national regulators).

It will be interesting to note how the standards are accepted on a national level, as the SEC announced in March that it will rely on and integrate the ISSB standards into their forthcoming mandatory climate disclosure, but there exists a discrepancy with respect to reporting of Scope 3 emissions between the current ISSB standards and the SEC proposal.