In response to a growing request for information on the IFRS Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), we’ve arranged a workshop and Q & As for emerging markets together with the ISSB and IFC. The workshop aims to present and address your questions pertaining to the development of the ISSB's exposure drafts and the next steps of the ISSB. We also aim to use this webinar to gauge your perceptions, expectations, and implementation support needed of the ISSB standards. This webinar took place on Thursday, June 16 at 13:30 - 14:45 CET / 7:30 - 8:45 am EDT

BACKGROUND:

On November 3, 2021, the IFRS Foundation announced the establishment of the ISSB, which has been positioned as one of the key steps supporting the pathway to sustainable finance and providing enabling mechanisms to mobilize private capital for climate action and sustainable development. The ISSB is developing a comprehensive global baseline of high-quality sustainability disclosure standards to meet investors’ information needs, and has recently published two exposure drafts focused on General Disclosure and Climate-related Disclosure for public consultations.  

In this workshop, the ISSB will give an overview of the two exposure drafts currently open for comment. However, we recommend that participants review these two drafts beforehand in order to provide feedback and ask questions that can support a constructive dialogue and enhancement of the drafts. You can access the exposure draft on General Sustainability-related Disclosures here, and the Climate Disclosure Draft here.

Speakers' bios

Panelists:

Martine Valcin, Global Manger, Corporate Governance I ESG Advisory, Knowledge and Learning, IFC

Martine is the Global Manager, Corporate Governance / ESG Advisory, Knowledge and Learning in the Sustainability and Gender Solutions Department at International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Washington, DC. She is responsible for global corporate governance investment risk management, the delivery of ESG advisory solutions, knowledge support to IFC staff and clients on best-in-class ESG risk management, and ESG-related technology and tools portfolio. She also leads ESG capacity-building initiatives globally over various issues such as disclosure and transparency, sustainable finance, corporate governance for small-medium enterprises and women in business leadership. She joined IFC in 2019 from Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP), where she held the role of Senior Director, Responsible Investment, inaugurating and leading the integration of ESG factors for PSP’s global public equities and bonds portfolio. Before joining PSP in 2016, Martine worked at Toronto Stock Exchange for fifteen years, where she held roles of increasing responsibilities. In her last role as Director, Listed Issuer Services, she led a multi-disciplinary team of professionals tasked with listing companies and reviewing Canada’s principal stock exchange corporate finance transactions. Martine is a McGill University graduate and holds a Master of Industrial Relations from Queen’s University and an M.B.A (Finance) from École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in Montreal.

Charles (Chuck) Travis Canfield, Principal Corporate Governance Officer, IFC

Chuck has a Bachelor of Science in accounting from Elmhurst University, Chicago, Illinois, USA, and a Juris Doctor with a concentration in International Law from Northwestern University. Chuck is a Certified Public Accountant (Illinois) and a Chartered Global Management Accountant (London). He has extensive experience advising enterprises on corporate governance and is the one of the main architects of the IFC Updated Corporate Governance Methodology and the IFC Beyond the Balance Sheet: Disclosure and Transparency Toolkit.  Chuck’s current endeavors include overseeing the CG Portfolio for the World Region. In addition, he has extensive experience as an auditor and tax advisor with international accounting firms as well as legal experience as a corporate and securities attorney.  Chuck has drafted accounting and audit regulation in numerous jurisdictions and authored law review articles on accounting and audit reform.  He has served as the World Bank Group Representative to the Monitoring Group and assisted a Strategy Working Party Member with the late 1990s reforms of the then International Accounting Standards Committee.

Sundip Jadeja, ISSB Technical Staff, IFRS Foundation

Sundip is part of the technical team at the IFRS Foundation involved in the development of the ISSB’s General Requirements Exposure Draft. He was previously part of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) technical team that consolidated with the IFRS Foundation in February 2022, having supported the CDSB’s technical work programme to drive uptake of the TCFD recommendations and enhance reporting of climate, natural capital and environmental information globally, including leading a project to advance the integration of material climate-related information into financial reporting. Previously Sundip spent four years at the trade body representing the UK private equity and venture capital industry, leading on several policy areas including responsible and impact investing; accounting, reporting and legal developments; and a governance initiative to improve transparency within the industry. Sundip trained as a chartered accountant at Deloitte and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). He has an MA in Land Economy from Cambridge.

Caroline Clark-Maxwell, ISSB Technical Staff, IFRS Foundation

Caroline is the Project Lead for the Climate Standard at the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), having previously played an active role in the Technical Readiness Working Group (TRWG) preparing their recommendations to the ISSB, in the form of prototype standards, including a prototype climate standard. Caroline was also part of the team facilitating the initial conversations between the IFRS Foundation, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) and the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF) on the potential to consolidate the three organisations, leading to the announcement to consolidate at COP26 in November 2021. Prior to working with the IFRS Foundation, Caroline worked as the Data Standards Lead for the Impact Management Project, working closely with CDP, CDSB, GRI, VRF, TCFD and WEF on various initiatives to facilitate improved interoperability between various framework and standards initiatives. Caroline has also worked as a strategy consultant for a global strategy firm, specialising in strategy and due diligence projects across a range of industries. She holds a double MSc in International Management and Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment from the Norwegian School of Economics.

Anthony Miller, Coordinator of UN SSE initiative, UNCTAD

Anthony Miller is the Coordinator of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative. He has managed the SSE since its launch by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2009.

Q&A moderators:

Tiffany Grabski, Senior Specialist, UN SSE initiative

Tiffany is a Senior Specialist for the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (UN SSE) initiative. In this role she was responsible for the drafting of guidance documents to help stock exchanges guide their markets on climate reporting and integrate the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD).

Ralitza Germanova, Corporate Governance Officer, IFC

Ralitza is the Lead of the IFC's Sustainability and Climate Disclosure and Transparency Program and Corporate Governance Officer with the IFC Environment, Social, and Governance Department based in Washington, DC. She has 20 years of experience working with regulators, stock exchanges, partner institutions, and private sector companies to improve corporate governance practices and ESG disclosure and transparency in Europe and Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia. During her 13 years within IFC, Ralitza worked on advisory and investment aspects of Corporate Governance, ESG standards, sustainability and climate disclosure and transparency across all regions. In the last five years, Ralitza has focused on integrating ESG risks and opportunities into advisory and investment tools to maximize finance for development. She is the architect of the award-winning Beyond the Balance Sheet, IFC's Disclosure and Transparency Toolkit, and currently an online platform. Beyond helping companies to improve ESG reporting, the Toolkit provides guidance to regulators and stock exchanges in developing ESG disclosure rules and sets disclosure standards in emerging markets. Ralitza led the development of ESG regulations, codes, scorecards, disclosure guidelines, bond principles with stock exchanges and regulators in ECA, LAC, MENA, Africa, East, and South Asia. She is the principal author of the Corporate Governance Scorecards toolkit, which led to developing an internationally recognized standard for CG assessment. In addition, she supported over forty CG codes and scorecards worldwide (Nigeria, Bulgaria, Serbia, Brazil, Kenya, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc.). In addition, she is developing and delivering ESG training and capacity building for companies, banks, and regulators in all regions. Ralitza has been leading the development of knowledge and training materials on Corporate Governance Codes, capacity building of director training institutions, and bank governance. Publications: From Companies to Markets - Global Developments in Corporate Governance, Challenges in Group Governance: The Governance of Cross-Border Bank Subsidiaries, A Guide to Corporate Governance Practices in the European Union. Before joining IFC, Ralitza worked for UNDP Bulgaria as a UN Global Compact Network coordinator, introducing Corporate Social Responsibility concepts in the country and with the Bulgarian Foreign Direct Investment Agency to promote foreign investment. Ralitza holds a Master's degree in Corporate Governance from HANKEN School of Economics in Helsinki and a Master's in Laws and Economics from the University of National and World Economy in Bulgaria.

Presentation and recording

Slides: ISSB workshop and Q&As for EM

Workshop Analytics

Overview

In response to a growing request for information on the IFRS Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), UN SSE and IFC arranged a workshop with Q&As for emerging markets participants together with guest expert speakers from IFRS-ISSB. The workshop aimed to present and address questions pertaining to the development of the ISSB’s exposure drafts and the next steps of the ISSB toward ESG standards. 

Participants

The session had a total of 323 attendees, from around the world with a nearly equal gender breakdown (49.2% female; 48.9% male).

Poll results during webinar

During the webinar the participants responded to polls which are described below.

• What aspect of the ISSB’s exposure drafts do you feel has the most value? (multiple answer) - responded by 117 participants.

• What support will your organization or market need to fulfill the recommended disclosures within the ISSB exposure drafts in emerging markets? (multiple answer) - responded by 150 participants.

• To what extent do you believe organizations require capacity building in each of the following areas? (meaning: 0 = no support needed; 10 = significant support needed) - replied by 44 participants.