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Sustainability Reporting Standards, the Materiality of Non-Financial Information

Supervisors

Associate Professor Simone Scagnelli

Abstract

Sustainability reporting standardization refers to the process of developing consistent guidelines for companies to report on their non-financial performance (ie. environmental, social, and governance - ESG). Standardisation can promote more transparency, comparability, and accountability, and in turn help building trust with stakeholders and drive sustainable business practices. There are several widely used sustainability reporting frameworks/standards, including the Global Re-porting Initiative (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB, now ISSB), and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) just to name the most adopted ones. Efforts to harmonize these standards have been ongoing for several years, with various initiatives aiming to align the different frameworks and create a common language to report non-financial sustainability performance. The most prominent effort is the merger between the SASB (American based) and IIRC with the IASB Foundation (European based) to create the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) with the aim of mandating the adoption of their S1 and S2 (Climate change) standards in January 2024. The aim of this project is to explore the role of these new standards and the existing ones in enhancing the comparability and reliability of non-financial ESG information, investigate the effectiveness of promoting materiality (and double materiality) and stakeholder engagement, as well as identifying related challenges and opportunities across different industries and regions support the further policy-making in this area.

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