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The consultation on Non-Financial Reporting (NFR) guidelines was already announced in article 2 of Directive 2014/95/EU on disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large undertakings and groups, the so –called Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD), which EU Member States are required to transpose into their national legislation by 6 December 2016. [...]
Richard Martin, Head of Corporate Reporting at ACCA, explains, 'If well designed, in a simple, though sufficiently detailed way, these guidelines have the potential to play a central tool to assist large EU public interest companies in the disclosure of relevant, useful and comparable non-financial information. It is for example very important to determine the concrete nature of the required disclosures, or what are the features that make a piece of information material for the purposes of the non-financial statement. It is also important to define how the guidelines should relate to the – numerous- already existing national, international or other EU-based frameworks.'
'A comparable implementation of the NFRD across Europe would be highly desirable to ensure a level-playing field, and the guidelines will hopefully help playing a part in that process. The NFR guidelines are primarily aimed at undertakings, however, guidance would also be useful to help Member States in their implementation exercise. Of course the European Commission organised implementation workshops for national authorities, but given that member states shall transpose the NFRD by December 2016, we hope that the guidelines will be ready sufficiently beforehand to be useful to effectively help member States in their implementation choices,' Richard Martin concludes.
Public consultation on non-financial reporting guidelines