Summary

Opening remarks and an overview of the agenda were provided by the SSE. The SSE team welcomed the Bulgarian Stock Exchange to its membership and congratulated those 56 exchanges worldwide that already created ESG reporting guidance for their market. The SSE continued to provide an overview of recent developments in strengthening cooperation, coordination, and alignment in the ESG reporting standards space and welcomed the speakers from IFAC and the “G5” group of organizations establishing sustainability standards and frameworks (GRI, SASB, IIRC, CDSB, CDP).

On both calls, speakers provided a short introductory statement to start off the discussion and focused in particular on the so-called “statement of intent” that was published by the “G5” and outlined the organizations’ vision on how to create a more comprehensive reporting system. In particular, speakers highlighted the role that every organization will play in future collaborations and outlined their plans to act together to increase ESG reporting. Speakers acknowledged that coordination will help to decrease the current confusion that many stakeholders including stock exchanges have experienced when dealing with ESG reporting standards. 

On both calls, the discussion also touched on the importance of market education in advancing ESG reporting and the role that exchanges play in this. The panels further discussed at length the recent merger announcement between the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) as well as the proposal from the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) foundation on establishing a new Sustainability Standards Board (SSB). 

The final agenda item featured SSE Secretariat updates, including: news on the 2021 Ring the Bell for Gender Equality events; an update on the SSE Climate Disclosure research, as well as an announcement of the Q1 2021 launch for the derivatives exchanges guidance.

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