ISSB describes the concept of sustainability and its articulation with financial value creation

In working towards a truly global common language of sustainability-related financial disclosures, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) agreed that it would be beneficial to ground its standard-setting work by clearly articulating the relationship between sustainability matters and financial value creation.

In its session on 13 December 2022, the ISSB agreed on how to describe sustainability and clarified that a company’s ability to deliver value for its investors is inextricably linked to the stakeholders it works with and serves, the society it operates in, and the natural resources it draws on.

Sustainability will be described in the ISSB’s General Sustainability-related Disclosures Standard (S1) as ‘the ability for a company to sustainably maintain resources and relationships with and manage its dependencies and impacts within its whole business ecosystem over the short, medium and long term’. Sustainability is a condition for a company to access over time the resources and relationships needed (such as financial, human, and natural), ensuring their proper preservation, development and regeneration, to achieve its goals.

Read more on these and other topics discussed here.