The Future of Corporate Reporting Conference
Last week XBRL International CEO John Turner participated in a panel at the European Commission’s high-level conference on “The future of corporate reporting in a digital & sustainable economy” in Brussels.
The panel was on “Corporate reporting: time to embrace the digital revolution” and it was an excellent discussion, covering a lot of ground. John’s perspective was on what policy makers (in the EU and the rest of the world) need to do in order to ensure that their markets and their economies take full advantage of digitalisation in terms of reporting and disclosure. Policy Makers should be concerned if disclosures are not digital, discoverable, accessible, available simultaneously and management’s responsibility.
They also talked about the need to ensure that as the world moves to rely more heavily on disclosures that are extra-financial (including ESG), that this information is as comparable as possible, and digitised. Policy makers also need to ensure that audit regulators and the audit profession have worked together to provide an authoritative framework for the independent review of disclosure in a digital age.
The takeaway? Experiment, collaborate and build ecosystems.
