UK government tight-lipped on stalled ISSB adoption

Missed deadlines and lengthy silence has prompted some to predict a change of plan on sustainability reporting requirements

The UK’s adoption of global sustainability disclosure standards appears to have stalled, raising concerns that the government may backpedal on its commitments.

The country was one of the first to commit to adopting output from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) back in 2021, and last year appointed a committee to advise it on how to endorse the first two standards.

That committee, known as the TAC, presented its proposal in December, recommending just a few minor changes to IFRS S1 and IFRS 2 to make them suitable for the UK market.

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade, Jonathan Reynolds, was expected to respond to the recommendations by the end of the first quarter of 2025, and open a public consultation on consequent draft standards.

But instead, the government has been tight-lipped on its position, with the Department for Business and Trade telling Real Economy Progress back in April that it was still “considering” the TAC’s advice.

A consultation would open “shortly” he said at the time.

The department maintained the same position when asked for an update this week, declining to explain the reason for the lengthy delay.

In April, the Department for Business and Trade said in a response to an ISSB consultation that it was thinking about loosening some of the language associated with TAC’s guidance, but the current silence has led many observers to believe it is either planning to introduce more significant changes, or reconsidering the introduction of sustainability disclosure requirements completely.

The US, Canada, India and the EU are among other jurisdictions ditching, revising or scaling back their reporting rules this year, amid concerns they could be bad for business.

This is not the first time the UK Government has kicked one of its sustainable finance initiatives into the long grass in recent years: it has been promising the market a national equivalent to the EU’s green taxonomy since 2022, but the framework is yet to materialise.

This week, the IFRS Foundation published a document outlining how the ISSB’s standards align with 17 jurisdictions’ local sustainability disclosure rules.