The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) was announced by the IFRS Foundation Trustees at COP26 in Glasgow on 3 November 2021 and formally established in 2022. It sits alongside the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and is intended to deliver a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability-related disclosures for investors and other capital-market participants.
The ISSB consolidated several pre-existing investor-focused initiatives, absorbing the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and the Value Reporting Foundation (which itself housed the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, SASB, and the Integrated Reporting Framework). It also drew heavily on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD); responsibility for monitoring companies' TCFD-aligned disclosures transferred to the ISSB in 2024.
In June 2023 the ISSB issued its first two standards:
- IFRS S1 – General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information
- IFRS S2 – Climate-related Disclosures
Both took effect for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2024, subject to adoption by individual jurisdictions. IFRS S2 incorporates the TCFD's four pillars (governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets) and requires disclosure of Scope 1, 2 and, subject to transition relief, Scope 3 greenhouse-gas emissions.
The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) endorsed the standards in July 2023, calling on its 130+ member regulators to consider adoption. Jurisdictions including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Brazil and Nigeria have announced plans to align domestic disclosure rules with ISSB standards, though uptake varies and the European Union maintains its parallel European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
The ISSB is chaired by Emmanuel Faber, former CEO of Danone, and operates from offices in Frankfurt and Montreal, with additional locations in London, San Francisco, Beijing and Tokyo. Its standards are voluntary at the international level; legal force depends on national adoption.
Example
In June 2023 the ISSB published IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, its inaugural sustainability and climate disclosure standards, which IOSCO endorsed for use by its member securities regulators the following month.
Frequently asked questions
The ISSB standards focus on a single materiality lens — sustainability information material to investors — while the EU's European Sustainability Reporting Standards apply double materiality, covering both financial impact on the company and the company's impact on people and the environment.
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