Engage climate disclosures with courage and boldness, says ISSB’s Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien

She was speaking on The Evolving Landscape of Sustainability Standards – S1 and S2, on the first day of the AICPA & CIMA’s inaugural Engage 2024 conference in Africa, on 21 August.

Ndidi further noted that with such risk came opportunity for Africa, however there was more need for higher engagement from corporates on the continent.

“Proportionality has come into play because Africa asked us to look at proportionality for IFRS1 and 2, as there are so many small entities. This came from the regulators, showing that they are engaged, but the corporates are not,” she said.

During her content-rich presentation, Ndidi provided attendees with a comprehensive overview of the ISSB’s journey to develop a global baseline of sustainability disclosures – and strongly urged finance professionals to “engage with courage and boldness’.

“A consultant told me that there are over 600 sustainability standards in the world. So, we know that the standards have to work together to enable interoperability. For example, with S2 (climate-based disclosures), we should remember that Africa is part of Europe’s value chain,” she explained.

With Africa accounting for less than 5% of all global emissions, it is clear that technically the rest of the world will be looking to Africa to offset carbon emissions.

“What an opportunity to attract all that capital to build a more resilient future,” Ndidi noted.

The formation of the ISSB was announced on 3 November 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow. In addition to developing standards that will result in a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability disclosures, the ISSB aims to meet the information needs of investors; enable companies to provide comprehensive sustainability information to global capital markets; and facilitate interoperability with disclosures that are jurisdiction-specific and/or aimed at broader stakeholder groups.

The ISSB is backed by the G7, the G20, the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (Iosco), the Financial Stability Board, African finance ministers and finance ministers and central bank governors from more than 40 jurisdictions.