The Trustees of the IFRS Foundation have published a Consultation Paper “to assess demand for global sustainability standards and, if demand is strong, assess whether and to what extent the Foundation might contribute to the development of such standards.” Here’s how the news release summed it up: Amid heightened focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters,…
Big four auditors face investor calls for tougher climate scrutiny announces a recent story on Reuters. Written by Matthew Green and Simon Jessop, it starts out like this: European investors managing assets worth more than 1 trillion pounds ($1.28 trillion) are pressing top auditors to take urgent action on climate-related risks, warning that failure to…
A recent article on the Economia website considers the subject of “generational accounting.” Written by Paul Wallace, it introduces the topic as follows: Countries including the US, Spain and Britain have become increasingly defined by age rather than class. Polarization tends to come to the fore politically during elections, but the economic and social roots…
From the integratedreporting.org website, we learn that the Institute of Public Auditors in Germany (Institut der Wirtschaftsprüfer in Deutschland) has released a position paper on the future of corporate reporting. It’s only available in German, but one of the authors provides an English-language summary. We’ve covered a couple of the main points before. First is the contention that…
It’s easy sometimes for accountants to imagine (or at least, to pretend they imagine) that the parameters of periodic corporate reporting are largely defined by those of the financial statements, with the MD&A as a tacked-on outgrowth… Most accountants are presumably aware, at least vaguely, of the conversations about integrated reporting and ESG disclosures and…
CPA Canada’s IFRS Discussion Group recently turned its attention to cap and trade programs, setting out the issue as follows: Many governments around the world have, or are in the process of developing, programs to encourage corporations and individuals to reduce emissions of pollutants. The Government of Ontario introduced a Cap and Trade program as…
ESG: good companies can make good stocks, announces a recent release by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Here’s how it expands on that: It’s not just for tree-huggers – incorporating environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) considerations into one’s framework is critical. First, these metrics have been strong indicators of future volatility, earnings risk, price…
