The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation Trustees have appointed Jeffrey Hales, currently chair of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and Michael Jantzi, who sits on the board of the SASB’s parent body, the Value Reporting Foundation, to serve on the newly-formed International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

The chair of the ISSB, Emmanuel Faber, said the announcement means “the ISSB has reached a quorum.”

The two appointments mean the sustainability rulemaker can now comply with the Foundation’s due process rule book and hold its inaugural meeting next month.

IFRS Foundation chair Erkki Liikanen added: “Guided by an international search firm, the Trustees have followed a thorough and extensive appointment process – reflecting the importance of this work.”

Hales has served as SASB chair since 2018 and is also a professor of accounting at the University of Texas in the US.

Jantzi is a well-known figure in the field of responsible investment and sustainable finance and set up ESG research and ratings firm Sustainalytics before its acquisition by Morningstar in 2020.

Hales will assume a part-time role on the ISSB, while Jantzi will take up a full-time role. Both will operate out of the ISSB office in Montreal.

The Foundation added that the search for additional members to fill the proposed complement of 14 will continue.

The ISSB’s first public meeting will take place in Frankfurt on 18 July.

One of the first tasks on the new board’s agenda will be to begin the process of redeliberating the first of its two draft sustainability standards dealing with general sustainability disclosures and climate change, which it issued in March.

The board’s vice-chair, Sue Lloyd, has previously indicated she expects the process to be finalised by the end of this year.

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