ISSB agrees path forward on nature-related disclosures
At its April 2026 board meeting in Beijing, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) agreed to propose requirements for nature-related disclosures in the form of an IFRS Practice Statement, rather than a new mandatory standard or amendments to existing IFRS S1 and S2. The Practice Statement would complement IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures, without changing the requirements in those standards. An exposure draft is expected in October 2026.
The ISSB stressed that applying the Practice Statement would have the full effect of an ISSB Standard for companies choosing to apply it, while minimising disruption to ongoing efforts to implement its recently issued sustainability and climate reporting standards. The decision drew on the work of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), which the ISSB began taking responsibility for maintaining last year.
The decision has not been without controversy. Environmental groups including WWF International, Conservation International, and the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation published an open letter urging the ISSB to introduce a mandatory standard on nature, warning that a non-mandatory approach would disregard growing recognition of the materiality of nature across business and finance. On the other hand, there is practical wisdom in avoiding disruption while jurisdictions are still adopting the existing ISSB standards.
From a digital reporting perspective, the key question going forward will be whether the Practice Statement will be designed from the outset to be machine-readable and XBRL-compatible: ensuring that nature-related disclosures can be as structured and comparable as the rest of the environmental and financial data alongside which they will sit. The October exposure draft will be worth exploring.
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