IFRS S1

International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), June 26, 2023: publication of IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, applicable to reporting periods beginning on or after January 1, 2024 in jurisdictions that adopt them. S1 sets the general framework for sustainability-related disclosure, which S2 then specializes for climate. Everything turns on materiality. S1 retains financial materiality alone, what could reasonably affect the entity's cash flows, access to finance or cost of capital, and leaves aside the entity's impact on its environment. The European directive applies double materiality, so the two bodies of rules complement each other more than they substitute for each other, despite a similar information architecture. S1 also requires publication at the same time as the financial statements and for the same reporting entity. That ends the sustainability report issued six months later on a different perimeter, subject to first-year reliefs. For an insurer the effect spreads: what it publishes about its own risks depends on what its investees and its insureds publish. So each jurisdiction that adopts the standard shifts data availability for everyone who depends on it.