Monday 2 November 2020

Agenda item 1. Election of officers
Agenda item 2. Adoption of the agenda and organization of work

Opening remarks: Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General, UNCTAD
Introductory remarks: James Zhan, Director, Division on Investment and Enterprise

High-level panel: Recent trends and key challenges in enterprise reporting agenda and impact of COVID-19

The session will review key trends in financial and sustainability reporting, its increased role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and in post-COVID-19 resurgence. It will address issues of integration of sustainability information into companies reporting cycle and its alignments with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, discuss achievements and challenges towards the convergence of main reporting frameworks to facilitate comparability, reliability and usefulness of sustainability reporting, and elaborate on key constraints towards such convergence and the way forward.

Keynote:
Tajinder Singh, Deputy Secretary-General, International Organization of Securities Commissions

Speakers:
Thomas Dodd, Policy Officer, Directorate-General, Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, European Commission
Jean-Paul Gauzès, Board President, European Financial Reporting Advisory
Patrick de Cambourg, President, Autorité des normes comptables
Rodney Irwin, Managing Director, Redefining Value and Education World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Eric Hespenheide, Chair, Board of Directors, Global Reporting Initiative
Robert Hirth, Co-Vice Chair, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
Plenary discussion

Tuesday 3 November 2020

Agenda item 3. Practical implementation, including measurement, of core indicators for entity reporting on the contribution towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals: Review of case studies

Under this agenda item, the next two panels (Tuesday, 3 November, from 2–4 p.m. and Wednesday, 4 November, from 2–4 p.m.) will discuss the following issues:

  • How can United Nations agencies contribute to facilitating the convergence of existing sustainability reporting frameworks and standards to ensure the usefulness of sustainability and Sustainable Development Goal reporting by companies for decision-making and assessing of the contribution of the private sector to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?
  • What role can the UNCTAD/ISAR Guidance on Core Indicators play to facilitate baseline reporting by companies on a set of indicators that are common and universal across industries, and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goal indicator framework?
  • What are the main findings of cases studies concerning the application of the Guidance on Core Indicators by companies in different countries and diverse industries? What are specific challenges for small and medium-sized companies?
  • What are best practices and initiatives towards the harmonization of sustainability/Sustainable Development Goal reporting and improvement of its quality?
  • What are the key capacity-building needs in this area and how they can be addressed?

Introduction of agenda item 3: Tatiana Krylova, Head, Enterprise Branch, UNCTAD

Speakers:
Mathieu Verougstraete, Economic Affairs Officer, Financing for Development Office, Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Laura Palmeiro, Senior Advisor, UN Global Compact
Ilaria Di Matteo, Statistics Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Ilcheong Yi, Senior Research Coordinator, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development

Case studies:
Donna Street, Director, Research and Educational Activities, International Association for Accounting Education and Research, Chair and Professor, Department of Accounting, School of Business, University of Dayton, United States
Khaled Dahawy, Professor of Accounting, School of Business, The American University in Cairo, Egypt
Cliff Nyandoro, Manager, Technical Services, Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya, Kenya
Shireen Naidoo, Sustainability Adviser
Board Member, Social and Ethics and Remuneration Committee Member, South Africa

Plenary discussion

Announcement ceremony of ISAR Honourees 2020
The annual ceremony will acknowledge best practices and initiatives in the area of sustainability and Sustainable Development Goal reporting by companies

Wednesday 4 November 2020

Agenda item 3 (continued). Practical implementation, including measurement, of core indicators for entity reporting on the contribution towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals: Review of case studies

Case studies:
Joanna Krasodomska, Associate Professor,
Financial Accounting Department, Cracow University of Economics, Poland/
Ewelina Zarzycka, Associate Professor, Department of Accounting, University of Lodz, Poland
Uthman Alzahrani, SABIC, Saudi Arabia
Caroline Seow, Head of Sustainability, Family Business Network International
Ariela Caglio, Director, Bocconi-ESSEC Double Degree and Associate Professor, Bocconi University
Baraka Cassian, Managing Partner of Cassian and Associates, United Republic of Tanzania
Valerie Bizier, Senior Statistician, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Discussants:

Angela Bai, Secretary-General, China Alliance of Social Value Investment
Guy Lalanne, Economist and Policy Analyst, Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Karin Svensson, Senior Advisor, SIDA’s project lead Global Investors for Sustainable Development
Jessica Fries, Executive Chairman, Accounting for Sustainability
Vania Maria da Costa Borgerth, Chair, thirty-second session of ISAR
Ewald Muller, Managing Director, Supervision and Authorization, Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority, Chair Thirty-first session of ISAR
Alexandra Rogozinski, Consultant for Guatemalan case study on GCI and comparison to UNGC CoP

Consideration of outcome of agenda item 3

Thursday 5 November 2020

Agenda item 4. Climate-related financial disclosures in mainstream entity reporting: Good practices and key challenges

This panel will discuss recent developments in climate-related financial disclosures in mainstream entity reporting. In particular, the following issues will be addressed:

  • What are the key achievements and good practices on improving climate-related financial disclosures?
  • What progress has been made and what are the main challenges in the practical implementation of key pronouncements in this area, such as the 2017 report of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures? What role can Governments play in this regard?
  • How can the quality, comparability and reliability of such reporting and its consistency with accounting requirements be facilitated? What tools and guiding materials are needed to facilitate the process?
  • Should climate-related financial disclosure be voluntary or mandatory?
  • What is the most efficient way to build the technical capacities necessary to prepare meaningful climate-related financial disclosures?
  • Could the UNCTAD/ISAR Guidance on Core Indicators represent a useful tool to facilitate the comparability of baseline data related to climate change?
  • How can ISAR better support countries in their efforts to improve climate change related reporting and implement the TCFD recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures?

Keynote:
Erkki Liikanen, Chair, International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation Trustees

Speakers:
Eric Dugelay, Partner, Sustainability Services (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures Expert, Deloitte)
Mardi McBrien, Managing Director, Climate Disclosure Standards Board
Pietro Bertazzi, Global Director Policy Engagement, CDP
David Carlin, Programme Lead, United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures Banking Pilot
Vladimir Skobarev, Partner, Head, Corporate Governance and Sustainability Department/Elena Pertseva, Deputy Director, Corporate Governance and Sustainability Department, FBK Grant Thornton
Céline Bilolo, Head of Stakeholder Outreach, Value Balancing Alliance

Discussant:
Vera Palea, Professor at the University of Torino, Member of the Scientific Committee and Chair of the WG on climate-related disclosure at the Italian Foundation for Business Reporting

Plenary discussion

Consideration of outcomes of agenda item 4

Friday 6 November 2020

Informal consultations (by invitation only)

Agenda item 5. Other business

5 (a). Under this agenda item, experts will review the progress and challenges in Sustainable Development Goal data collection from companies towards the achievement of Goal 12.6.1, number of companies publishing sustainability reports

Speakers:
Madelyn Antoncic, CEO, Global Algorithmic Institute/ Richard V. Rothenberg, Executive Director, Global AI Corporation, United States of America
Andreas Feiner, Chief Executive Officer, Arabesque S-Ray
Juan Pablo Morataya, Executive Director, CentraRSE, Guatemala
Richard Woods, European Union Public Policy Lead, World Benchmarking Alliance
Tauni Lanier, Sustainability Director, World Wide Generation

5 (b). During this segment, member States that implemented the UNCTAD–ISAR Accounting Development Tool and the Guidance on Core Indicators will share their experiences with participants at the session

Speakers:
Maria Ria Nonyana-Mokabane, Chief Director, Consumer and Corporate Regulation Division, Legislative Drafting, Department of Trade and Industry, South Africa
Wilmar Franco Franco, Technical Council for Public Accountancy, Colombia
Debora Ponce, Mission of Guatemala to the World Trade Organization, UNCTAD and other United Nations agencies
Arman Bekturova, Director, Ministry of Finance, Kazakhstan

Consideration of outcomes of agenda item 5

Agenda item 6. Provisional agenda for the thirty-eighth session of ISAR

Agenda item 7. Adoption of the report