25 November 2020 — The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and the Sustainability
Accounting Standards Board (SASB) today announced their intention to merge into a unified
organization, the Value Reporting Foundation.
Professor Mervyn King (Chairman of MACD Advisory Board) is Chairman Emeritus together with
Michael Bloomberg, of the Value Reporting Foundation said: “The Value Reporting Foundation
is a stepping stone in the creation of a global comprehensive reporting system.”
“We have seen collaboration between standards setters and an inclination for collaboration
amongst world bodies. This has driven, inevitably, to thoughts of merger by these standards
setters. The merger now of SASB and the IIRC creates a value creation entity where intellectual
capital of the IIRC, involving integrated thinking and doing an integrated report, will be promoted
globally and strengthened by its national committees around the world. Both SASB and the IIRC
need to be congratulated on being far-sighted on the merger. The GRI also needs congratulations
for continuing its collaboration with SASB in the endeavour to achieve “interoperability” between
their two standards. The push must be towards a single comprehensive system of reporting with
integrated thinking at its heart and an integrated report being the life blood of accountability.
There must be a facilitation of the connectivity between the financial and the non-financial in the
public interest at large.” Professor Mervyn King.
This move intends to provide investors and corporates with a comprehensive
corporate reporting framework across the full range of enterprise value drivers
and standards to drive global sustainability performance.
In an era where the impacts of a global pandemic, climate change and growing inequality are
intensifying, intangible value and the need for data-driven sustainability information have grown in
importance. Capital markets demand evidence-based, market-informed, and transparent data in
order to deliver long-term value to shareholders while also helping secure the future of our people
and our planet—reporting is an important means to this end.
markets are hungry for information
linked to enterprise value creation, but they cannot easily digest what comes from a fragmented
reporting landscape. This merger is an important step towards businesses and investors
communicating with clarity and ease about the issues that matter most for financial performance.”
Robert K. Steel, Chair, SASBFoundation Board of Directors.
“The <IR> Framework and the SASB Standards are complementary. Under the Value Reporting
Foundation, we will link the concepts between the <IR> Framework and SASB Standards even
further.”Barry Melancon, Chair, IIRC Board.
This merger advances the work of those organizations which issued the Statement of Intent to
work together towards comprehensive corporate reporting and the new Value Reporting
Foundation will continue to support the IFRS Trustees’ consultation and engage with the
IFRS Foundation, IOSCO, EFRAG and others working towards global alignment on a corporate
reporting system.
The press toolkit can be found here.