This document is a proposal and set of investor recommendations on a stock exchange listing standard focused on corporate sustainability disclosure. The aim of the proposal is to establish key elements of a minimum global standard for corporate sustainability reporting that would provide investors with improvements in the quality and depth of sustainability information being reported in each market; greater focus on the most material sustainability issues, risks, and opportunities faced by companies; better disclosure of the methods used to make these determinations; increased consistency and comparability of the sustainability data collected and disclosed by companies; a more explicit connection between company activities and sustainability impacts to the broader marketplace (externalities and systemic risk); and ease of finding existing sustainability data through the use of an index or table.
This proposal is the result of multi-year dialogues between institutional investors—including members of Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk and signatories of the Principles for Responsible Investment—and stock exchanges around the world. Institutional investors are under heightened pressure from clients and beneficiaries to be responsible stewards of client assets, which means not only financial responsibility but also ethical responsibility for the impact of those assets on communities, workers, and the environment.