GSG Chief Policy Officer – Sebastian Welisiejko – joins the global efforts to progress impact transparency at the first meeting of the International Sustainability Standard Board’s (ISSB) Sustainability Consultative Committee (SCC).

The IFRS Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), chaired by the GSG-led Impact Taskforce (ITF) Steering Committee members, Emmanuel Faber and Jingdong Hua, has formed a Sustainability Consultative Committee (SCC) to “inform and advise the ISSB on priority sustainability matters and related technical protocols, as well as significant interdependencies between sustainability matters”. Acting as a consultative and advisory forum, SCC members will “constructively contribute towards the achievement of the ISSB’s goal of developing globally accepted, high-quality sustainability disclosure standards”.

The GSG is proud to have been appointed as a member of the ISSB’s SCC, represented by its Chief Policy Officer, Sebastián Welisiejko.

Four permanent members of the SCC; the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD – OCDE), the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank will be joined by seven expert advisors, including the GSG.

Chief Policy Officer and head of the G7 ITF Secretariat, Sebastián Welisiejko said of the ISSB-SCC appointment:

"The GSG is delighted to join the ISSB’s Sustainability Consultative Committee, alongside outstanding colleagues and impact leaders from all over the world. Together with my team, we will seek to both contribute to and learn from the crucial work of the ISSB, in close connection with members of the GSG across 35+ countries.

We look forward to continuing our efforts to implement the recommendations of the G7 Impact Taskforce, which stressed the importance for the global reporting baseline to be relevant to both developed and emerging economies, to reflect perspectives and realities of SMEs as well as large corporations, and for it to strike an adequate balance between “green” and “social” elements, recognizing the inextricable connection amongst the two in our journey towards a just transition to net zero economies"

Sebastian Welisiejko said of the ISSB-SCC appointment
Chief Policy Officer and head of the G7 ITF Secretariat

Background and key developments in impact transparency

• Global investment portfolios are increasingly demanding transparent, reliable and comparable company disclosures on environmental, social and governance (ESG) related matters.
• Taking investment decisions through a triple lens of risk, return and impact, impact investment moves beyond current ESG frameworks and seeks to develop more reliable, robust and comparable standards for better informed investment decision making.
• A major hurdle to increased impact transparency  is a lack of a global baseline to understand and measure companies’ impact(s). Significant developments have been made towards the creation of globally accepted, high-quality sustainability disclosure standards – the most notable being the establishment of the IFRS´s ISSB in November 2021 and its ongoing work to deliver such a baseline.
• Created under the 2021 UK G7 presidency, the Impact Taskforce (ITF) gathered inputs from more than 170 finance, policy and business leaders representing more than 110 organizations in 40 countries to harness investment for the good of all people and the planet.
• Led by the GSG and UK network partner the Impact Investing Institute, the ITF identified impact transparency as a key lever for change towards sustainable and impact economies.
• Welcomed by G20 and G7 leaders at COP26 in November 2021, the IFRS Foundation announced the creation of a new standard-setting board – the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) – to work towards “a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability-related disclosures standards that provide investors and other capital market participants with information about companies’ sustainability-related risks and opportunities to help them make informed decisions”.