Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB)

The Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) was founded in 2007 at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF).  Unlike certain other organizations that provide bespoke metrics for environmental reporting, the CDSB aims to integrate climate change-related disclosures into pre-existing financial reports (such as 10-K filings or other annual reports).  Accordingly, rather than providing its own metrics, the CDSB relies upon metrics developed by other organizations (such as the CDP or SASB).  And, through the CDSB’s reporting framework, it provides companies “guidance to communicate that content in mainstream reports… [in order to] inform their investors and stakeholders, while providing regulators with a comprehensive set of information.”

The CDSB framework includes seven guiding principles:

  1. Environmental information shall be prepared applying the principles of relevance and materiality;

  2. Disclosures shall be faithfully represented;

  3. Connections shall be made between environmental, social and other information in the mainstream report;

  4. Disclosures shall be consistent and comparable;

  5. Disclosures shall be clear and understandable;

  6. Disclosures shall be verifiable; and

  7. Disclosures shall be forward looking.

And, specifically, the framework requires reporting on a dozen topics:

  1. Governance;

  2. Management’s environmental policies, strategy and targets;

  3. Business risks and opportunities;

  4.  Sources of environmental and social impacts;

  5. Performance and comparative analysis;

  6.  Outlook;

  7. Organisational boundary;

  8. Reporting policies;

  9. Reporting period;

  10. Restatements;

  11. Conformance; and

  12. Assurance.

According to the CSDB, its framework supports compliance with other standards, including the European Union’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive) and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations, and “forms part of the evidence base as the ISSB develops its IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.”   While the CDSB’s framework and resources remain relevant until the ISSB publishes the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, given the CDSB’s consolidation into the IFRS, the organization will not be publishing additional work or guidance going forward.