Editorial

The IFRS Foundation Conference 2024 was held in London towards the end of June. This annual event, which in the past has provided an opportunity to find out about the IASB's work, has extended its scope to include the ISSB's activities. Since 2022, it has been the practice for the two board chairs, Andreas Barckow and Emmanuel Faber, to each deliver a keynote address to open the proceedings. This year, Dr Barckow's speech focused on the manner in which the IASB seeks to manage complexity in its approach to standard-setting, while Mr Faber took delivery, achievement and responsibility as the themes underpinning his speech. One of the Foundation's key considerations in deciding to establish the ISSB was the aim to reduce what was described as fragmentation in the regulations and guidance being disseminated and applied to sustainability reporting, which itself provides an example of complexity, faced by companies and investors. Mr Faber described many different ways in which the ISSB is working to reduce this complexity. In this issue, both speeches are covered in articles that also draw on recent press announcements to provide further context, in particular, about the ISSB's work. A separate article focuses on the results of the ISSB's agenda consultation. As has been the case over the past year, the board will spend a significant amount of time helping jurisdictions to adopt its standards, and companies to implement them. Nevertheless, over the next two years, it expects to have the time to work on new areas. Taking into account the feedback received, the board has decided to add two projects to its work plan: one will cover biodiversity, ecosystems and ecosystem services; and the other human capital. This means that in the short term, it will not be working on two other projects: one on human rights, and the other on integration in reporting. The latter was seen as important, but not a priority. This decision affected the IASB, which has kept its project on the Management Commentary Practice Statement on hold for some time pending the outcome of the ISSB's consultation. The IASB has now decided it will finalise this project as described on p 10.