Role in Sustainability Reporting

• Activities undertaken by government/ regulators in relation to sustainability reporting [21]:
  • the development of mandatory or voluntary reporting requirements specifically designed to elicit sustainability information from organizations
  • endorsement of sustainability activity conducted by non-governmental organizations
  • authoritative statements confirming that existing requirements (such as risk reporting) should be interpreted to apply to sustainability reporting
• The type of regulator that develops sustainability reporting requirements includes, but is not limited to [21] :
  • securities, finance or business regulators that require disclosure of sustainability-related risks that might affect the economic decisions made by existing and prospective investors
  • environment regulators requiring details of emissions and waste produced by organizations as well as energy and environmental resources used and consumed
• Intergovernmental initiatives to coordinate sustainability reporting practices -
  • Group of friends of paragraph 47 (GoF47) [25]
• Examples of government/ regulator activities in sustainability reporting -
  • India - The Companies Act (Section 135 CSR) [22]
    • Issuer Type - Governmental Department/ Agency (Ministry of Corporate Affairs)
    • Mandatory Requirement
    • Objective - Established ****a 2 percent threshold for CSR spending, for companies with a certain net worth
  • USA - Amendment to S-K Regulation: Pay Ratio Disclosure Rule [23]
    • Issuer Type - Financial Market Regulator (Securities and Exchange Commission)
    • Mandatory Requirement
    • Objective - Enforces the disclosure of CEO pay ratio by large private and listed companies
    • ESG coverage- G (Governance) - Remuneration
  • Denmark - Recommendations on Corporate Governance (2018) [24]
    • Issuer type - Governmental Department/ Agency (Committee on Corporate Governance)
    • Voluntary Requirement
    • Objective - Provides best practice guidelines for the management of companies with shares admitted to trading on a regulated market in Denmark
    • ESG coverage- G (Governance)

Resources

• **Carrots & Sticks -** A website that contains a database of mandatory and voluntary instruments that either require or encourage organizations to report sustainability-related information. The data covers instruments in 64 countries. The database covers data up till 2020.

Check out Government/ Regulators

Check out Stock Exchanges