The Climate Disclosure Standards Board (“CDSB”) and the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (“SSE”) initiative have formalised their long term and ongoing collaboration and cooperation with an official Exchange of Letters. For many years, the two organisations have worked together to provide support and training projects to exchanges and assist them in questions on ESG disclosure. The announcement signals the initiation to expand the organisations’ joint efforts to support capital market infrastructures and their regulators in emerging markets on environmental disclosure.
“As we prepare for COP26 next year, we are strengthening our support activities for climate disclosure and green finance,” said James Zhan, Chair of the SSE Governing Board and Director of Investment and Enterprise at UNCTAD. “The SSE’s new strategic partnership with CDSB will improve the technical assistance we provide to stock exchanges and further support the market for green investment.”
Mardi McBrien, Managing Director of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) said: “As the bedrock of capital markets, we have seen the transformative role stock exchanges have played in supporting businesses and their investors to transition to sustainable practices. We are delighted to strengthen our partnership with the SSE to scale up technical assistance and training to exchanges globally, supporting them with the tools and training their markets need to create environmentally and financially resilient markets.”
The exchange of letters took place during a jointly organised online webinar titled “Sustainable Stock Exchanges - Scaling up Climate-related Financial Disclosure” that included a discussion on climate disclosure with the London Stock Exchange Group and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. As part of the London Climate Action week, the event offered the opportunity to discuss crucial issues around climate disclosure and how to work together to assist markets in better understanding and implementing existing standards.
Providing assistance to stock exchanges in implementing existing standards is also the key focus of the SSE’s recent and ongoing work on climate disclosure guidance. The project is conducted under the auspices of Mark Carney (UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance) and with the support of the CEOs of LSEG, and JSE, the two co-chairs of the SSE Climate Disclosure Advisory Group. The work stream seeks to produce a model guidance for exchanges to promote TCFD disclosure implementation among their issuers.
If you are interested to join the Advisory Group for the SSE climate disclosure guidance, please contact [email protected].
About the CDSB
The CDSB is an international consortium of business and environmental NGOs, committed to advancing and aligning the global mainstream corporate reporting model to equate natural capital with financial capital. By offering companies a framework for reporting environmental information with the same rigour as financial information, the CDSB helps them to provide investors with decision-useful environmental information via the mainstream corporate report, enhancing the efficient allocation of capital.
