home
news

Multistakeholder Statement in Reaction to the ISSB's 2-year Work Plan

share this article

The International Sustainability Standards Board is presenting in London this Tuesday the work plan for the upcoming two years, including research projects to develop standards for companies’ reporting on biodiversity and human capital.

In reaction to this, we publish a statement signed by a group of civil society, investor and corporate associations namely B Lab Global, Eurosif, ECOS, Frank Bold, World Benchmarking Alliance, ShareAction, Mouvement Impact France and Shift and features public positions submitted by UNEP FI, WBCSD, PRI or the OECD.

The statement reflects positions and recommendations submitted to the ISSB by some of the largest investor and corporate associations, global institutions and leading NGOs in the fields of environment and human rights, including:

  • A call for a strategic approach to address risks and dependencies across the entire spectrum of deeply interconnected environmental, social and governance topics, which is of high importance for investors and financial institutions to adequately consider and incorporate long-term systemic risks
  • A request to make ISSB standards interoperable and connected with impact-related disclosures (namely GRI and the already adopted EU Sustainability Reporting Standards), as well as compatible rather than competing with existing international standards and frameworks globally endorsed such as the UNGPs or the OECD Guidelines.
  • The urgency to address impact drivers of biodiversity loss, notably to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, building from an integrated approach that considers water and marine resources, pollution as well as circular economy.
  • A strong concern over the separation of human capital and human rights risks instead of planning for a coherent architecture of social-related disclosures.
  • The need to underpin any development of social standards with the process of due diligence for providers of capital to understand the extent to which companies are equipped to identify and manage their risks and opportunities effectively.

Read the full statement below.

In response to the ISSB two-year work plan
    (
51 kB
)

You may also like these news

Finalisation of European ESG reporting rules: CSRD adopted and standards published

The European Parliament has adopted the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which clarifies transparency obligations for large companies operating in the EU on their sustainability impacts, risks, and opportunities. Pursuant to the CSRD, companies across all sectors will report against the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, which were developed by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), submitted to the European Commission and published on 22 November.

Alliance
3/7/2023

Civil Society Organisations Urge the European Commission to Adopt an Ambitious Set of Sector-Agnostic Reporting Standards

NGOs and civil society groups will only support an ambitious first set of sector-agnostic ESRS that closely builds on the EFRAG drafts adopted last November. They urge the Commission to follow EFRAG’s technical advice alongside 60+ companies and investors worth 651bn USD, and caution against making significant changes at this stage, as this would risk discrediting the process so far and undoing a good compromise.

Summary of the Turów case

Governments turning a blind eye to Illegal lignite mining in Turów: Local communities and the environment suffer.