By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A workshop designed to help investors understand the basic concepts of the SASB standards and make effective decisions based on the standards has been organised by the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Regulation Limited, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) as well as the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) of Nigeria.
The groups disclosed that they came up with the seminar as part of their commitments to championing the drive of sustainability and climatic disclosure reporting among companies to ensure investors in the Nigerian capital market are protected.
In her opening remark during the opening of the three-day virtual workshop on IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards for companies as well as investors in the capital market in Lagos on Tuesday, the chief executive of NGX Regulation, Ms Tinuade Awe, said her organisation would continue to promote a fair, transparent and orderly market that thrives on full and timely information needed for the protection of investors in the Nigerian capital market.
“As a member of the NGX Group, our commitment towards driving sustainability and climate disclosures dates back in time and continues as we partner with organisations such as the FRC, and so we are pleased to have these sessions as they are important, and we look forward to having more collaborations with the FRC as well as other organisations,” she said.
Ms Awe further revealed that there is an adoption readiness strategy mapped out to help accountants and auditors in sustainability and climatic reporting.
“The adoption readiness working group is a creation of the FRC supported by the ISSB where basically a group of people are being put together in order to advise or help the FRC on a roadmap for getting to the adoption of these standards to work in Nigeria,” she said.
Earlier in his welcome remarks, the Executive Secretary of FRC Nigeria, Mr Shuaibu Adamu, revealed that Nigeria is the only African country that has been selected to launch the IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 while adding that key to the launching of these standards has been awareness and capacity building.
Commending NGX RegCo and ISSB, Mr Adamu said, “It is encouraging that African countries are coming together to collaborate in this capacity-building programme because it is clear that Africa does not want to be left behind.
“We want to appreciate NGX RegCo for agreeing to partner with us, and they have been so far worth partners in this endeavour. It is clear that ISSB wants implementation of these standards globally, and they have taken time to ensure Africa is not left behind,” he added.
Also speaking, the Board Member of ISSB, Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, said that the IFRS standards are used across 140 countries, and the objective is to enable companies to provide comprehensive, decision-useful sustainability and climate information to global capital markets, develop a common language of sustainability-related disclosures.
“What we have done is adopt a building block approach which allows for regulators to put in place a connection between not just the IFRS standards but also existing local multi-stakeholder information needs and local standards that currently exist. All together to meet the information needs of investors globally.
“The idea is to make things simpler so that on the one hand, S1 and S2 are interoperable with jurisdictive requirements like you have in Europe, for example, ESRS and adopted to meet broader multi-stakeholder needs that may look familiar like the GRI Standards so that essentially, a comprehensive foundation of disclosures is provided. The S2 is what will be implemented first,” Nnoli-Edozien said.
