The Board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions published its report on Sustainable Finance and the Role of Securities Regulators and IOSCO, which seeks to help market participants address issues related to sustainability and climate change. IOSCO’s Sustainable Finance Network prepared the report, which highlights three recurring themes that involve multiple and diverse sustainability frameworks and standards including:

1. Sustainability-related disclosure;

2. Lack of common definitions of sustainable activities; and

3. ‘Greenwashing’ and other challenges to investor protection.

The report indicates that the lack of consistency and comparability across third party frameworks could create an obstacle to cross border financial activities. The Report reflects the expectations from regulators and market participants that IOSCO should take an active role in facilitating global coordination and addressing transparency.

New SSE database

In order to support securities regulators on how, within their existing mandates, they can act (and are acting) on sustainability-related risks and opportunities, the SSE recently launched a new interactive Securities Regulators Database to provide examples of how securities regulators are already contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. These examples can be filtered by the ten action areas found in the SSE’s Action Plan for securities regulators which is the central guidance of the SSE publication How securities regulators can support the Sustainable Development Goals. To learn more about SSE work in this area, visit our Securities Regulator workstream on the SSE website.  

Watch below the IOSCO intervention in the last SSE Global Dialogue in 2018. To know more about 2020 SSE Global Dialogue click here.