ISSB adding Biodiversity to reporting standards.
This week at the United nations COP15 talks in Montreal, Emmanuel Faber, the chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) announced that they expect to add in guidance for more transparency on biodiversity immediately after publishing their first climate rules in 2023.
Launched at last year’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, the ISSB had announced that they were developing their first two proposed standards for sustainability and climate related disclosures. The two proposed standards are focused on addressing the need for more consistent and comprehensive Sustainability information through a baseline of sustainability disclosures. These disclosures should provide a global baseline designed to meet the information needs of investors who are assessing enterprise value. Since that initial announcement, the ISSB has delivered on all of their promises and it’s also been announced that CDP will incorporate the ISSB climate-related disclosure standard into it’s environmental disclosure program as well.
This decision to add biodiversity comes after the board received strong feedback regarding the connection between climate, natural ecosystems and a just transition. The goal now, is to do incremental updates to the core standards as soon as they’re released.
“We have decided that we will immediately advance work to build from the climate standards, which should be ready in the next few months, to extend that immediately to the connection to natural ecosystems, deforestation, biodiversity and the connection to the just transition.”
- Emmanuel Faber, chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board
The ISSB also said that it will consider the work of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). TNFD is developing a risk management and disclosure framework that hopes to enable organizations to report and act on evolving nature-related risks.
Sources:
https://framework.tnfd.global/
https://www.esgtoday.com/issb-to-add-biodiversity-just-transition-disclosures-to-climate-reporting-standard/
https://www.esgtoday.com/ifrs-releases-first-draft-of-new-sustainability-and-climate-disclosure-standards/
https://www.ifrs.org/news-and-events/news/2022/11/issb-cop27-progress-implementation-climate-related-disclosure-standards-in-2023/
https://www.ifrs.org/news-and-events/news/2022/03/issb-delivers-proposals-that-create-comprehensive-global-baseline-of-sustainability-disclosures/
