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wo years ago at COP26, in Glasgow, we announced—after a broad international consultation—that the IFRS foundation is ready to serve to create global sustainability disclosure standards. This consultation process was demand driven.
The announcement included three pillars.
Firstly, the IFRS Foundation is ready to establish the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Its mission will be to deliver a global baseline of sustainability-related financial disclosure standards for the capital markets.
Secondly, we made an undertaking to consolidate the investor-focused sustainability disclosure landscape. This consolidation was made possible due to the commitment of market-leading standard-setting organisations and to the broad support of institutions and actors in the sector.
The consultation also underscored the crucial importance of interconnectivity between financial and sustainability disclosure reporting. These were instrumental factors in the decision to create the ISSB within the IFRS Foundation.
Thirdly, we promised to publish the first two prototypes, on general requirements disclosures and climate related disclosures.
Today, we can report that all of these commitments that we made two years ago have been fulfilled. During this period we have enjoyed the active oversight and support by the Monitoring Board of public authorities currently chaired by Takashi Nagaoka.
We have moved further after a rigorous due process. On 26 June this year, the ISSB delivered its inaugural sustainability standards—IFRS S1 and IFRS S2. This marked a transformational moment in the advancement of the investor-focused sustainability disclosure landscape.
On 25 July we received the hugely important endorsement of these standards by IOSCO—the global body for securities regulators. I want to pay a particular tribute to IOSCO and its current chair Jean-Paul Servais for his leadership and support with the IFRS Foundation on this journey.
Our work continues. The IFRS Foundation has developed a capacity-building programme to aid the implementation of standards and has established advisory groups to enable structured engagement with stakeholders. To foster interoperability of the ISSB’s Standards with other standards, we have worked in active collaboration with numerous bodies and authorities in the field.
And it is fitting, here at COP28, to mark the official end of the work of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The Financial Stability Board announced earlier this year that the ISSB’s Standards reflect the ‘culmination’ of the work of the TCFD. This provides yet further consolidation of the disclosure landscape.
Finally, the ISSB has conducted a global consultation to determine the next focus areas for sustainability disclosures....
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