Sustainability disclosure is one of the fastest moving areas of corporate reporting. Globally, Europe has been taking a lead in setting new norms, which has a worldwide influence as European institutional investors require their investees to be in compliance with the new standards, and corporations of all types and sizes to follow the new and changing norms.

In this webinar, SIMI will take up two key developments of corporate sustainability standards in the hope to have Japanese corporations familiarize themselves with new ways of doing business.

1) EU’s CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive)
In April 2021, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which would amend the existing reporting requirements of the NFRD (Non-Financial Reporting Directive).

2) GRI’s revised Universal Standards
In October 2021, GRI released the revised Universal Standards representing the most significant update since 2016, which focus on delivering the highest level of transparency for organizational impacts on the economy, environment, and people.

Date: Wednesday, 24 November 2021
9:00 to 10:30am in Amsterdam/Brussels
5:00 to 6:30pm in Tokyo

Language: English only (with a commentary in Japanese).
Participation Fee: Free
Expected audience: Japanese corporations, financial institutions, consultants, social purpose organizations, etc.

Session flow:
Opening (5min): SIMI

Speaker 1 (20min):
Jean-Christophe Nicaise Chateau
Legislative Officer, Corporate Reporting, Audit and Credit Rating Agencies (DG FISMA: Directorate General for Financial Stability, Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union)
European Commission

• Overview of EU’s role in standard setting on sustainability reporting
• What is Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and what does it purport to achieve?
• Where is it now and what will happen in the next few years?
• What are its impacts on Japanese business (multi-national corporations and others)?

Speaker 2 (20min):
Peter Paul van de Wijs
Chief External Affairs, GRI

• Standard setters coming together – how and why?
• Alignment with the EU standards
• GRI’s new Universal Standards – what is new?
• IFRS and ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) – what is it and what will happen?

Commentary (15min)(in Japanese)
Hidemi Tomita
Managing Director, Lloyd’s Register Japan K.K.
GRI Director Japan

Q&A (20min)

Closing: SIMI