Emmanuel Faber has been appointed chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the IFRS Foundation announced today.
It said that as the former chair and chief executive officer of Danone, Gaber had long championed the importance of sustainability information to the global capital markets and its relevance to the investment decision-making process.
It also said that under Faber’s leadership, Danone had introduced various innovations to help investors and credit providers better understand how sustainability factors might affect their assessment of enterprise value over the short, medium and long-term.
Erkki Liikanen, chair of the IFRS Foundation Trustees, added: “His global leadership skills and drive make him the ideal inaugural ISSB chair to lead the development of standards to meet investors’ demand for information about climate and other sustainability matters.”
Faber, who was ousted from Danone earlier this year after it came under pressure by activist investors, said investors were demanding high quality, globally comparable sustainability information and that the ISSB represented “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fulfil that need in a fast-changing world, where climate in particular will drive major shifts in the coming years”.
“We should move diligently and build on the great momentum resulting from the formation of the ISSB at COP26,” he added.
Faber’s appointment, which is effective 1 January, is for an initial three-year term. The trustees of the IFRS Foundation said they would shortly call for nominations for the remaining ISSB members, and announce the appointments of vice chairs and senior staff members to create the ISSB’s global leadership team.
The IFRS Foundation also indicted that its first public consultation, which would be about a general disclosure requirements standard and a climate disclosure standard – would be published in the first quarter next year.
The creation of the ISSB was announced at COP26 in November.
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