Montreal is at the heart of financial sustainability issues

Canadian on the ISSB Board

The ISSB has also completed the appointment of 14 members to the Board of Directors. Emmanuel Fabre confirmed the arrival of Jingdong Hua as Vice President 1 year ago^Verse October. Based in Montreal, the international finance expert will be responsible for implementing standards in emerging markets. The director, who lived in Ontario, recently retired as Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank.

Sue Lloyd also serves as Vice Chairman. The New Zealander in particular has been at the helm of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the International Financial Reporting Standards Interpretations Committee.

Among the board members is Canadian: Responsible investment specialist Michael Jantzi founded Sustainalytics, an environmental, social and governance (ESG) research and assessment firm that was acquired by Morningstar in 2020. Since then, he has served as general manager of ESG strategy for the company.

The other members are Richard Parker, Jenny Bovinger Schuster, Verity Shigar, Jeffrey Hales, Hiroshi Komori, Bing Ling, Nididi Nolo-Edozen, Tae Yong Paik, Veronica Poncheva, and Elizabeth Seeger.

The ISSB Council will meet four times a year in Montreal. The next meeting will be held on December 16 and will coincide with COP15. The capital will also host the first symposium on the sustainability of international financial reporting standards next February.

More than 1,500 comment messages

Since the beginning of the year, the organization’s work has been going well. The organization submitted two initial proposals for sustainable financial reporting standards, S1 and S2, for public consultation last March.

The first standard sets out proposed general requirements for sustainable financial reporting. The second criterion relates to information related to climate change.

“They had a very rich feedback as Quebec was very present,” said Emmanuel Fabre.

More than 1,500 comments were issued during this consultation. Deliberations on the draft standards resumed in September and are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

“The first two standards should be ready to undergo the IIROC accreditation process in the first part of 2023. They can therefore begin to be used for courses from reports 2024,” the president stated.

Nigeria, the first country to adopt the standards

Nigeria, the most populous country on the African continent with a population of 219 million, will be among the first countries to adopt the new standards. “There is an opportunity for this country to develop financial flexibility and attract foreign capital,” the chairman believes.

One of the main challenges the organization will face over the next few years is to build a framework for the interoperability of North American ISBB standards with European EFRAG standards “so that they don’t have to duplicate reports“It will have an impact on about 50,000 companies in Europe and on all capital markets,” said Emmanuel Fabre.

The ISSB chair also noted that the start-up of the Canadian Sustainability Reporting Standards Board (CCNID), which should be ready in April 2023, was creating “momentum” around these issues.

The creation of the ISSB was announced at COP26 in November 2021. Its mission is to create environmental financial disclosure standards that its leaders hope will be used for all companies on a global scale.

The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation hosts the ISSB, the non-profit organization that created the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).