Editorial

One way or another 2020 has been a year that nobody will forget. Painful and difficult as it has been, there has been positive progress on some fronts, and one of those is in the area of non-financial reporting (NFR). Efforts to limit or mitigate climate-change are often described as a race against time, and the need to act quickly has prompted two fast-moving new initiatives, which appear to be racing one another, although it is doubtful that any book-maker is offering odds on the outcome. On the one hand, there is the proposal by the IFRS Foundation Trustees to establish a new Sustainability Standards Board (SSB) that would sit alongside the IASB under the existing governance structure of the Foundation. The new board would develop sustainability standards, building on the work that already exists, but not rubber-stamping it. The expectation is that it would benefit from the tried and trusted due process and other governance features that have led to the global success and credibility of IFRS. The Trustees’ ambition is that the new sustainability standards would be formally adopted for mandatory use by many of the jurisdictions using IFRS. With over 140 such jurisdictions, this would lead to comparability and transparency in reporting about a range of sustainability issues, starting with climate-change. The second runner in the race is the European Commission (EC), which is considering, with the help of a Task Force chaired by Patrick de Cambourg, whether to develop NFR standards that would be mandatory across the European Union. The European ambition is to be a global leader in the field.