(29 August 2018) Amman Stock Exchange issued the publication titled “Guidance on Sustainability Reporting”, as fulfillment to its commitment to provide written guidance for its listed companies on ESG reporting. The guidance has been issued with the aim of raising awareness of both the importance and benefits of sustainability.

“We are honoured to issue our first guidance on sustainability reporting, which reflects the ASE’s commitment to promote sustainability in the Jordanian capital market and among our listed companies. The ASE fully supports and understands the benefits that socially and environmentally responsible businesses and sustainable investments provide. Issuance of this guidance shall encourage listed companies to measure and publicly report their ESG performance and impacts,” said Mr. Azar, CEO of the Amman Stock Exchange. “We deem this step as a milestone that will be followed by subsequent steps in the future regarding sustainability,” Mr. Azar added.

The exchange’s guidance includes six steps to preparing a sustainability report, as well as recommended sustainability metrics. It also draws on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines to outline the general and specific standards disclosures that reports should contain.  The guidance is available in both English and Arabic.

The ASE joins 38 other Partner Exchanges of the Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative which have published similar guidance. There are nine further exchanges which have committed to producing guidance in the near future.

In 2015 the SSE began a campaign to encourage all stock exchanges to publish guidance on ESG reporting for their markets. To help achieve this goal, the SSE developed a template, or “Model Guidance”, to assist stock exchanges in developing their own guides on ESG reporting for their listed companies. In addition, the World Federation of Exchanges developed a set of metrics aimed to accompany the SSE’s Model Guidance, which were updated in June 2018. The SSE also maintains a list of the guides published by other exchanges that those wishing to develop their own guidance to look to for direction. All guidance documents and tools can be found on the SSE’s ESG Disclosure page.