Climate Impact and Corporate Communication: The European and Italian Situation and the Issb Proposal Outlined in Exposure Drafs S2 Climate-Related Disclosure - 29 March 2022

Abstract

On 29 March 2022, the International Sustainability Standard Board (ISSB), an emanation of the IASB, issued two Exposure Drafts: IFRS S1 General Requirement for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosure. This article will only deal with Draft S2, which proposes a very comprehensive formal and substantive reporting structure concerning the issue of the climate impact of companies' production activities. It must read Draft S2 in the light of Draft S1 since both documents refer to the same rules of conduct and the same formal structure of the external report. The two Drafts S1 and S2 interpreted as documents that form part of a single global vision of corporate communication, show how the ISSB wants to overcome the duality of financial reporting/sustainable disclosure and propose a unified idea of corporate communication. This is also demonstrated by the proposal, contained in Draft S1 and taken up by Draft S2 as an explicit reference to what was stated in the First Draft, to communicate financial reporting and all reports on sustainability and climate change to third parties on the same date and with the same communication tool.