April 2023 supplementary ISSB Update now available

On 4 April 2023, the ISSB convened to deliberate on transition reliefs for the IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information.
The board provisionally agreed to include a transition relief in IFRS S1 that would permit an entity to report solely on climate-related risks and opportunities outlined in IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures during the first year of implementing IFRS S1 and S2. In the second year of implementing these standards, the entity would be required to provide information about other sustainability-related risks and opportunities.
It is worth noting that this one-year transition relief would not alter the effective date of IFRS S1. The ISSB had earlier established in February 2023 that IFRS S1 would be operative for annual reporting periods commencing on or after 1 January 2024. However, for an entity utilizing this transition relief in the first year of adopting IFRS S1, the requirements would only apply to the disclosure of climate-related financial information.
The ISSB emphasized that this transition relief would not impact the application or prerequisites in IFRS S2. Additionally, if an entity employs this transition relief, it must disclose this fact, and it could lengthen the prior transition relief agreed upon in IFRS S1, allowing the entity not to report comparative information concerning other sustainability-related financial information during the first year of divulging that data. To clarify, comparative information for climate-related financial information would be required in the second year.
All 14 members of the ISSB concurred with these determinations.
The board will continue to conduct the balloting process and anticipate publishing the two Standards in the latter part of the second quarter of 2023.