The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation is looking for a chair and vice-chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board, which sets the global environmental, social and governance reporting standards.
The IFRS Foundation trustees put out a call for nominations Monday as the latest step toward the possible establishment of a new board ahead of a meeting in November of the United Nations’ COP26 climate conference. Nominations for the chair and vice chair are open until June 30.
The IFRS Foundation began taking steps last September toward setting up such a board after the existing ESG standard-setters came under pressure from global financial regulators to more closely align their competing standards and frameworks to discourage companies from greenwashing their progress on sustainability (see story). The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and the International Integrated Reporting Council announced plans last fall to merge together into a group called the Value Reporting Foundation later this year. They and other standard-setters — such as the Global Reporting Initiative, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board and the Carbon Disclosure Project — also said they would work on aligning their standards.
However, calls have continued for the IFRS Foundation, which oversees the International Accounting Standards Board, to set up an International Sustainability Standards Board that it would oversee alongside the IASB. The IFRS Foundation released a consultation paper last September to ask for views on the proposal. While the proposed board is still in the consultation phase, it seems all but certain to happen, and the existing ESG standard-setters are expected to be part of a working group that will help form the new board.
The IFRS Foundation trustees are also consulting on a set of proposed amendments to the foundation’s constitution that came out in April to the foundation’s constitution describing the institutional arrangements for the ISSB. According to the proposed amendments, the chair and vice-chair will be full-time positions on a 14-member board. The geographic location of the new board has yet to be determined by the trustees.
The establishment of the potential new board and the appointments are still subject to the outcome of the consultation and the trustees’ assessment that the criteria for the new ISSB have been met. The recruitment process for the chair and vice-chair will be conducted by an executive search firm appointed by the trustees.
