Firm risk and IFRS S2 climate change related disclosures

Seminar summary

We are witnessing a significant effort from accounting standard setters and capital market authorities to standardize corporate reporting for climate-related issues. The main goal of this standardization process is to make such disclosures, which are largely voluntary till today, more relevant for capital market participants. Investors are particularly interested in climate-related disclosures that deal with climate change risks (both physical and transition) and hence these new reporting standards are expected to play a key role in informing investors’ decision making. The IFRS Foundation is in the centre of these endeavours with the formation of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) in 2021. Soon after its formation, the ISSB released the exposure draft IFRS S2 “Climate-related Disclosures”, which focuses on firms’ disclosures around climate change with a particular emphasis on risk aspects. Motivated by these developments, we first examine the extent of climate-related disclosures in the 2021 annual and sustainability reports of an international sample of 150 companies from three industries (Chemicals, Construction Material and Metals and Mining) with high carbon footprint and hence high impact on climate change. In particular, we compare these firms’ climate-related disclosures against the total set of disclosures required by the IFRS S2 exposure draft to examine the ‘preparedness’ of these companies to apply the new Standard. Second, we examine whether the level of disclosures provided is associated with firms’ systematic and idiosyncratic risk. To the extent that these disclosures are informative over the climate risks companies are facing, we expect that the level of disclosures should be associated to firms’ risk. Our findings indicate that our sample firms disclose already, to some extent, information required by the IFRS S2 exposure draft. Further, we show that firms’ risk is lower for firms that already disclose particular categories of disclosures required by the IFRS S2. Our study provides useful evidence for standard setters and capital market authorities around their efforts to enhance the quality of climate-related disclosures.

How to attend this seminar

This seminar will take place online on Wednesday 24 January 2024 at 2pm

The seminar is free to attend with no need to register in advance,

Come join us online.

Speaker bio

Dr Diogenis Baboukardos

Diogenis Baboukardos is an Associate Professor of Accounting. His research interests lie in the broad field of corporate reporting with a particular focus on issues related to sustainability and climate change reporting. His research has been published in various academic journals (such as Journal of Accounting & Public Policy, British Accounting Review, Regional Studies, and Accounting Forum) and it has been funded by professional bodies and regulators (such as the UK Financial Reporting Council, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland). He is the secretary of the BAFA Financial Accounting Reporting Special Interest Group and editorial board member of the Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, the Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies and the European Management Journal whilst he serves as reviewer in various journals in the fields of accounting, finance and business studies. He is a member of the European Accounting Association, the British Accounting & Finance Association, the International Association for Accounting Education & Research and a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. He is a visiting research fellow of the Essex Business School, University of Essex, and a research affiliate of the Adam Smith Observatory of Corporate Reporting Practices ,University of Glasgow.