Financial Reporting Webinar Series: ESG reporting – Beyond Compliance

The World Economic Forum (WEF), in collaboration with the Big 4 accounting firms have recently released the Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of  Sustainable Value Creation White Paper in response to the demand for a common reporting framework on ESG metrics. Some business commentators believe that COVID-19 has most likely accelerated the priority on ESG issues globally. In the US alone, Morningstar has reported record inflows into ESG funds in the first half of 2020.

With the increasing spotlight on ESG, the quality of ESG reports is also a topical issue and investors have increasingly called on companies to get some level of assurance on the reported information.

During the webinar, we would be discussing the recent developments including:

• key elements of the WEF common reporting metrics
• the forthcoming ESG Assurance Reporting guide issued by the HKICPA which encourages listed companies to seek independent assurance to strengthen the creditability of ESG information disclosed in their ESG / sustainability reports.