World Accounting Report
Towards a sustainable future
There is never a shortage of news about the latest developments on sustainable reporting, and November was no exception. While
non-financial reporting is linked in Europe to the mandatory requirements in the Accounting Directive, the requirements in
that Directive are fairly high-level. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) report has been highly
influential but it does not have the weight of law in the same way as IFRS standards have in Europe and elsewhere in the world.
Nevertheless, the IASB has recently published an article explaining how its standards implicitly contain requirements that
relate to climate-change and other risks. The key points raised are set out below, together with some observations about the
future for corporate reporting in this important area.