SEC unveils sustainability reporting guidelines
Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2019 16:26:27 +0000
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently launched the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for Publicly Listed Companies (PLCs) as part of initiatives to encourage improved business practices.
The case for sustainability reporting was made during a conference last week with the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) and in partnership with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
In a statement, the SEC said the guidelines reflected four globally-accepted frameworks: the GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Standards, the International Reporting Council’s Integrated Reporting Framework, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board’s Sustainability Accounting Standard and recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure.
The sustainability reports will detail the economic, enviromental and social impact of a firm’s activities.
The SEC wants PLCs to submit these, in addition to their regular annual financial reports, on a “comply or explain” basis beginning 2020.
Sustainability reporting is growing among companies worldwide, with 93 percent of the world’s largest 250 companies doing so based on a 2017 KPMG survey.
In the Philippines, however, only 22 percent of PLCs had published sustainability reports as of 2017, the SEC said.
SEC Chairperson Emilio Aquino said the issuance of Sustainability Reporting Guidelines would not only make PLCs aware of sustainability but make it a part of their priorities.
|“We hope we would all be reminded that the responsibility of creating a sustainable environment is an obligation so basic and imperative that it precedes any kind of law. It is a call for the preservation of humankind, of our generation and of the generations to come,” he added.
PSE President Ramon Monzon said companies had the “inherent responsibility” of adopting sustainability as part of good governance.
“We must accept the moral and social accountability to be at the forefront in acting on and upholding the SDGs (sustainable development goals) relevant to us,” he said.
“To realize this, sustainability should be at the core of our corporate culture and ingrained in the organization’s mindset from the board of directors to our newest hire, even the interns.”
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