Reporting standards and frameworks

The G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance are the international standard for corporate governance. They help policymakers evaluate and improve the legal, regulatory and institutional framework for corporate governance, with a view to supporting economic efficiency, sustainable growth and financial stability.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

• Governance: Evaluate and improve the legal, regulatory and institutional framework for corporate governance, with a view to supporting economic efficiency, sustainable growth and financial stability.

Signatories to the Principles for Responsible Banking (PRB) must use the reporting and self-assessment template as part of the requirements of the Principles.

Use this resource to:

• Show progress on implementing the Principles for Responsible Banking;
• Provide transparency about impacts and contributions; and
• Assess if PRB requirements are being met and obtain assurance.

The Core Characteristics of Impact Investing define the growing approach of impact investing, and offer the financial markets greater clarity on what constitutes credible impact investing.

This resource is for the following Actions of Impact Management:

• Strategy: Intentionally contribute to positive social and environmental impact by using evidence and impact data in investment design, enabling the investor to manage impact performance and contribute to the growth of impact investing overall.

This legal review found that while there are differences across jurisdictions and investor groups, where investing for sustainability impact approaches can be effective in achieving an investor’s financial goals, the investor will likely be required to consider using them and act accordingly.

It also provides an extensive suite of options for policymakers wishing to facilitate investing for sustainability impact, including changing investors’ legal duties and discretions, such as allowing the pursuit of sustainability goals as long as financial return goals are prioritised, and a presumption in favour of investor collaboration in tackling sustainability challenges.

Use this resource to:

• Strategy: Understand whether the law permits, encourages, or even requires investors to manage the sustainability outcomes of their investments.

The GRI Standards are a modular system of interconnected standards for reporting on sustainability performance, covering a wide range of sustainability topics, including climate change, human rights, labour practices and product responsibility. They enable organisations to measure, manage and communicate their sustainability performance effectively.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

• Communicate: Report to all stakeholders on material topics that reflect the organisation’s most significant impacts. GRI’s standardised metrics help the organisation and its stakeholders compare performance with others.

The SASB Standards are reporting standards that provide industry-specific disclosure topics and associated metrics for measuring performance across 26 General Issue Categories (or sustainability topics). Management or mismanagement of performance on these sustainability topics may create, preserve or erode value for a typical organisation in a given industry over time.

Use this resource for the following Actions of Impact Management:

• Communicate: Report to providers of financial capital on sustainability topics that are likely to affect how value is created, sustained or eroded for the organisation over the short-, medium- and long-term.

Reporting standards designed to help organisations understand and disclose their impacts in a way that meets the needs of multiple stakeholders. These standards are arranged by a set of Universal Standards that apply to all organisations, and 35 Topic Standards that contain disclosures for impacts related to economic, environmental and social topics.

Use this resource to:

• Measure, assess and value: The standards themselves provide guidance on selecting metrics to report. Using standardised metrics helps the organisation and its stakeholders compare performance with others.
• Communicate: Report to all stakeholders on ‘material topics’ that reflect the organisation’s most significant impacts.

Reporting framework that provides principles-based guidance for organisations seeking to create an integrated report, containing both financial and non-financial information. The guidance is tailored specifically for private sector, for-profit companies, but the Framework can also be applied to the public sector and non-for-profit organisations.

Use this resource to:

• Communicate: Report to providers of financial capital on sustainability topics that are likely to affect value creation over the short-, medium-, and long-term.

This reporting framework offers companies seven guiding principles and 12 reporting requirements to help prepare (financially) material and decision-useful environmental disclosures for the mainstream report. CDSB additionally offers topic-specific guidance for companies, such as on climate-related reporting and climate accounting.

Use this resource to:

• Measure, assess and value: Understand the measurement and disclosure standards and guidance for organisations, so that investors can provide capacity to the asset to help adherence.
• Communicate: Understand how underlying assets might prepare environmental and climate change information in a way that connects to mainstream financial information.

The “Investing with SDG Outcomes: A Five-part Framework” provides a high-level framework for investors to shape real-world outcomes in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This is a cross-cutting resource, meaning that it supports the internal impact management process as a whole, rather than one or a few of the Actions of Impact Management.