The International Integrated Reporting Council has published its
The new version aims to clarify concepts and simplify guidance in the framework for report preparers and produce integrated reports with better quality. Integrated reporting aims to unite financial reporting with reporting on other aspects of an organization, including its environmental, social, governance, strategic and human capital aspects. Approximately 2,500 organizations in more than 70 countries now use the current IR Framework.
Publication of the revised framework comes at a time of transition for the IIRC, which announced plans last fall to merge with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board this year to form a group called the Value Reporting Foundation (
Last year, the three groups, along with the Global Reporting Initiative and the Carbon Disclosure Project, announced plans to harmonize their sometimes conflicting standards to meet the needs of investors who are increasingly looking to invest in companies based on their environmental, social and governance, or ESG, measures. International financial regulators have been pushing the groups to align their standards better to make the disclosures easier to compare and discourage “greenwashing” by companies that choose to emphasize whatever environmental claims they like. The International Financial Standards Foundation has floated a proposal to set up an International Sustainability Standards Board that it would oversee alongside the International Accounting Standards Board, and has been gaining positive comments on that proposal from groups like the International Federation of Accountants and the Institute of Management Accountants.
The newly revised IR Framework may therefore give way eventually to whatever standards the Value Reporting Foundation or a potential International Sustainability Standards Board promulgate, but it will probably be used to help build those future standards too.
The revisions focus on a simplification of the required statement of responsibility for the integrated report, and aim to provide improved insight into the quality and integrity of the underlying reporting process. The revised framework offers a clearer distinction between outputs and outcomes and places greater emphasis on the balanced reporting of outcomes and value preservation and erosion scenarios.
“Since 2013, the Framework has progressed the quality of reporting around the world,” said IRC CEO Charles Tilley in a statement Tuesday. “It has enabled businesses to assess their ability to create value in the short, medium and long term, to improve their communication with investors and key stakeholders, and driven a more cohesive and efficient approach to reporting that enhances accountability and stewardship across financial, natural, manufactured, human, intellectual, and social and relationship capital. As business resilience is tested so severely in the wake of the global pandemic, climate change and growing inequality, effective integrated thinking and reporting is more important than ever.”
The IIRC consulted with 1,470 experts in 55 jurisdictions before publishing the revised framework. “This revised IR Framework is the culmination of invaluable feedback we received from our stakeholders globally and the tireless efforts of our dedicated and expert IR Framework Panel to identify key areas for clarity and simplification,” said IIRC chief technical officer Lisa French, who oversaw the consultation and revision process, in a statement. “As a market-led movement, the input of business, investors, the accountancy profession and experts in the field is essential. As a result, the revised IR Framework is now in an even better position to support the journey to integrated reporting.”
The London-based Chartered Institute of Management Accountants welcomed the revised framework, saying it would provide organizations across the world with a more valuable mechanism to improve their corporate reporting, focus on long-term value creation and increase stakeholder trust.
“The coronavirus pandemic has made abundantly clear that organisations cannot continue to solely base their corporate reporting and decision-making on past financial performance,” said
Andrew Harding, chief executive of management accounting at CIMA, in a statement. “They must now focus on a broad range of resources and relationships to provide a comprehensive, forward-looking picture of the organisation’s performance and its value-creation potential, particularly in an uncertain world. The revised IR Framework will provide organizations with high-quality standards to create relevant, reliable and comparable corporate reporting across the world.”
Barry Melancon, president and CEO of the American Institute of CPAs and the Association of Certified Professional Accountants, and global chairman of the IIRC, explained some of the changes going on with the IIRC, SASB and other groups during a virtual meeting Tuesday of the Accountants Club of America. He predicted that the CDSB would be likely to join SASB and the IIRC in their merger.
“There is discussion about how we create a rationalization of the standards and metrics that are in play globally, not just in the U.S., but globally, for businesses to comply with,” he said. “It is my impression that businesses, boards, employees, shareholders and investors all understand the need for businesses to report and be more consistent in these areas. But there are some 200 different models around the world. That does not comport with how this can actually evolve. If you are a CEO of a company, you might say, ‘Yes, I want to do the right thing. Tell me the definition of the right thing.’ That's not an unreasonable response from the leaders or boards. There are just too many things that have sort of evolved over the last four or five years that have not been rationalized. Our emphasis in 2020 at the IIRC was to have a rationalization process that hopefully will come to fruition in 2021.”
He pointed out that accounting standards also evolved in the 20th century from competing rules into a set of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Melancon acknowledged that it may take a while longer for all the international groups to come together around standards, and the U.S. has moved more slowly on integrated reporting than Europe, the U.K. and parts of Asia. But he believes the Biden administration will be putting more emphasis on ESG requirements, and the SEC may be backing that effort as well. “I think it's important that we have a global answer,” he said.
