Regulate Sustainability Reporting Not the Practice, FRC Urged

The Sustainability Professionals Institute of Nigeria (SPIN) has stressed the need for a clear distinction between sustainability practice and sustainability reporting. The institute has therefore called on the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC) to regulate corporate reporting without positioning itself as the definer of sustainability practice or a competitor to the professionals it regulates. The institute, in a statement, said it remained concerned by a growing narrative that treats the two disclosure standards as though they were the whole of sustainability and a monopoly of the accounting profession, insisting they are not and that reporting is not the discipline. According to the institute, sustainability encompasses governance, strategy, environmental stewardship, climate resilience, biodiversity, human rights, labour practices, stakeholder engagement, responsible investment, the circular economy, community development and long-term value creation. It further said reporting standards would provide a way to communicate aspects of that work, adding that they do not constitute it. “Reporting is the final expression of sustainability performance. Organisations cannot credibly disclose what they have not first governed, measured, managed and improved. As Nigeria moves toward mandatory disclosure, our objective must be better sustainability performance, not merely better reports,” the SPIN statement said.