WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS AND LEARNING
POINTS FOR THE ACCOUNTANCY PROFESSION
AND PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTANT IN BUSINESS?
○ Link financial and non-financial performance
and outcomes to improve understanding of
sustainable value creation.
○ Ensure that ESG disclosures meet investor
needs by being material, timely, consistent,
and comparable in order to improve
usefulness of reporting and greater
transparency.
○ Bring together data that may be dispersed
in different parts of the organization or its
supply chain to support internal and external
decision making.
• Professional accountants need to support
their organizations in meeting an increasing
investor demand for ESG information. They will
need to ensure that both the organization and
its investors receive a complete and relevant
picture of organizational performance and
impacts. Professional accountants should
be well placed to bring the discipline and
application of accounting rigor to the collection,
analysis, and reporting of ESG data, and
support the incorporation of ESG factors into
an organization’s management processes and
systems.
• Five key recommendations provide guidance
on how the accountancy profession needs to
respond to great investor interest and awareness
of ESG factors.
○ Engage investors effectively to determine
their ESG information needs to better
communicate performance.
○ Incorporate ESG factors and non-financial
performance information into governance
and accountability arrangements to improve
information and disclosure quality.