The vision outlined in the Statement of Intent builds on the notion that frameworks and standards that ‘ensure high quality, assurable information, on which the ecosystem depends’ create a foundation for reporting to support more efficient markets and more informed decision-making.
The goal is to create a ‘similar mindset’ around sustainability information that has evolved for financial information — market acceptance based on reliable, rigorous, transparent and independent standard-setting processes with robust governance. The key to this for sustainability information, as it is for financial information, is identifying a common set of metrics and disclosure requirements, where possible.
The recommended standard-setting process acknowledges the distinct materiality considerations of different stakeholders and corresponding different reporting objectives. It includes a broad global stakeholder consultation to identify topics and disclosures that may be relevant to a company’s positive and negative contributions to sustainable development. This is coupled with a process or ‘filter’ that reflects the needs of the user whose objective is financial decision-making.
The Statement proposes a ‘stepping-stone’ or ‘building block’ approach captured by the diagram below. The first building block is based on the standards and frameworks already in existence that are focused on disclosures relevant to value creation captured in an integrated report. This would be followed by a second building block that expands disclosures to the wider stakeholder group and communicated through other communications channels.