China publishes final climate reporting standard
Multiple ministries, regulators and the central bank have cooperated to produce the national framework, based on IFRS 2
China officially published a ‘trial’ corporate climate reporting standard last week.
A final version of the standard was released on December 25th by the country’s ministry of finance, in coordination with the ministries for the environment, commerce, industry and IT, as well as the National Development and Reform Commission, the regulators for state-owned enterprises, and the central bank.
It is based on the International Sustainability Standard Board’s (ISSB) climate framework, known as IFRS 2, and builds on a general standard for Chinese businesses published at the end of 2024.
According to a recent note on the new standard from PwC, it is “intended to produce functionally-equivalent results” to the ISSB, although “in selected areas, the level of granularity and specificity is beyond what IFRS 2 requires”.
Industry-specific guidance is in the pipeline, to give clearer directions to companies operations across steel, cement, fossil fuels, power and utilities, fertilizers, aluminium, hydrogen and automobiles.
For now, the standard is voluntary, but a timeline and scope for a mandatory regime is expected to be announced in due course.
Implementation guidance will also be published.