08 November 2018

IIRC: Leading corporate reporting bodies launch two-year project for better alignment

The Corporate Reporting Dialogue has announced a ground-breaking two-year project focused on driving better alignment in the corporate reporting landscape, to make it easier for companies to prepare effective and coherent disclosures that meet the information needs of capital markets and society.

Launched simultaneously at the Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit in London and in Sydney, during the World Congress of Accountants 2018, Corporate Reporting Dialogue participants committed to driving better alignment of sustainability reporting frameworks, as well as with frameworks that promote further integration between non-financial and financial reporting.

The Corporate Reporting Dialogue was launched four years ago as the principal working mechanism globally to achieve dialogue and alignment between the key standard setters and framework developers which have a significant international influence on the corporate reporting landscape.  It comprises CDP, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, the FASB, the Global Reporting Initiative, the IASB, the International Organisation for Standardisation, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, and is convened by the IIRC.

Corporate Reporting Dialogue participants have regular meetings to align their views and to promote further co-operation. Participants have already adopted a Statement of Common Principles of Materiality, developed a common map of the reporting landscape, and took a common position in support of the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD). This collaborative project will work on aligning standards with the recommendations published by the TCFD, which were published in June 2017.

Through this new project, participants will map their respective sustainability standards and frameworks to identify the commonalities and differences between them, jointly refining and continuously improving overlapping disclosures and data points to achieve better alignment, taking into account the different focuses, audiences and governance procedures. Participants will identify how non-financial metrics relate to financial outcomes and how this can be integrated in mainstream reports.

An important aspect of conducting this project in the context of the Corporate Reporting Dialogue is to undertake this work with the overview of financial standard-setters, consistent with the ultimate aim of integrating financial and non-financial reporting.

Full press release

© IIRC