The IFRS Foundation has reported a growing wave of global momentum towards the adoption of its IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards (ISSB Standards), with 36 jurisdictions now having adopted or moved towards using the standards.
According to ESG Today, this includes 17 jurisdictions that have finalised their approach to applying the ISSB framework, highlighting a steady increase from previous updates.
The latest figures show continued progress compared to earlier reports. In May 2024, over 20 jurisdictions had been reported to be aligning with the ISSB Standards. By November 2024, this figure had climbed to 30. IFRS Sustainability Standards Board chair Emmanuel Faber said, “We have seen new jurisdictions joining the initial cohort of ISSB adopters every month, with a total of 36 today.”
Established in November 2021 during the COP26 climate summit, the ISSB was created with the goal of developing global sustainability disclosure standards. These standards are designed to provide investors with transparent and consistent information about companies’ sustainability risks and opportunities. The IFRS issued its first two reporting standards, IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, in June 2023. Soon after their release, IOSCO, the international forum for securities regulators, encouraged its members to integrate the standards into their regulatory frameworks.
Alongside the latest update, the IFRS Foundation has published a first set of jurisdictional profiles and snapshots to demonstrate how individual jurisdictions are progressing. These include 17 jurisdictional profiles and 16 jurisdictional snapshots. The profiles are published once a jurisdiction’s approach has been finalised and is no longer open for consultation. These updates aim to promote transparency, highlight progress, and enable jurisdictions to learn from each other’s approaches to implementing the ISSB Standards.
The 17 jurisdictions that have completed their profiles include Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Hong Kong SAR, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Chinese Taipei, Tanzania, Türkiye and Zambia. Of these, 14 have committed to full adoption of the ISSB standards, while two are adopting only the climate reporting elements, and one is partially incorporating the standards.
The 16 jurisdictional snapshots reflect jurisdictions still finalising their approach. Among these, 12 have already published standards fully aligned or functionally equivalent to ISSB Standards. Three jurisdictions have proposed standards incorporating a substantial portion of the ISSB Standards, while one jurisdiction is still considering allowing their use. The IFRS Foundation stated that full profiles for these jurisdictions will be published once their decisions are complete.
Commenting on the significance of this progress, Faber said, “The ISSB Standards are bringing clarity to investors on the risks and opportunities lying in value chains across time horizons in a rapidly changing world. A year ago, we committed to publishing detailed jurisdictional profiles describing adoption of our Standards to complement our Inaugural Jurisdictional Guide. The profiles provide a detailed current state-of-play to investors, banks and insurers who continue to struggle with the lack of appropriate, comparable and reliable information on these critical factors affecting business prospects.”
Keep up with all the latest RegTech news here
Copyright © 2025 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
