The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has issued a proposed set of future Agenda Priorities for public consultation. These include both ‘human capital’ and ‘human rights’ with regard to social issues. Shift, the B Team and the World Benchmarking Alliance share a concern that this approach will foster further confusion and complexity in the market given the extent to which these two categories are overlapping and intertwined.
In this set of ‘key messages’ we jointly highlight the important opportunity ISSB now has to set the right foundations for disclosures on social matters by starting with a general thematic standard, much as it did for climate. This would enable a clear architecture for social issues and deliver the contextual information that investors need regarding those aspects of corporate governance, strategy, risk management and metrics that are particular to social matters. Our three organizations are disseminating these messages in the hope that they resonate with others who may be responding to the ISSB consultation. We invite everyone to draw from them as they see fit.
