In addition to the commitment to work closely with IOSCO and the IFRS Foundation, the Statement expresses the ongoing commitment to work with other interested stakeholders across the ecosystem, including companies, investors and governments. In particular, the statement specifically recognises the EU’s leading as well as the efforts of the WEF International Business Council initiative to develop common metrics drawing extensively on the parties’ existing standards.
The WEF recently launched its white paper ‘Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation,’ which is the follow-up report to a consultation paper released in January 2020 at the WEF annual meeting at Davos. The main objective of the initiative, a collaborative effort involving a wide range of parties — including the Big Four, companies, investors, standard setters and other stakeholders — was to identify a universal set of ESG metrics and disclosures that companies could use for reporting and to monitor their progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Statement solicits feedback on the ideas the paper expresses, along with recognition of the frameworks and how they can be used together. It also encourages engagement with all parts of the evolving corporate reporting ecosystem to realise the much-needed change.