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ISSB sees progress on climate standards adoption

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The International Sustainability Standards Board reported progress on adoption of its climate-related disclosures by companies around the world.

The ISSB issued a progress report Tuesday indicating that more than 1,000 companies have referenced the board in their reports and 30 jurisdictions are making progress on introducing ISSB standards in their legal or regulatory frameworks. The International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation, which oversees the ISSB and the International Accounting Standards Board, presented the findings to the Financial Stability Board on Tuesday. The report also discusses the alignment of disclosures with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures recommendations, which the IFRS Foundation took over responsibility for recording climate-related disclosure progress when the TCFD disbanded in 2023.

The release of the report comes amid the United Nations’ COP29 climate change summit in Azerbaijan this week.

The report indicated that 82% of companies disclosed information in line with at least one of the 11 TCFD recommendations as companies around the world turn their attention to climate-related disclosures. However, less than 3% of these companies are reporting in line with all 11 TCFD recommended disclosures, so few companies offer disclosures covering the company’s entire climate-related governance, strategy, risk management or metrics and targets. The report includes information about the status of the 30 jurisdictions that are progressing toward introducing ISSB standards in their regulatory frameworks, along with insights into how companies are transitioning from disclosures prepared using the TCFD recommendations to disclosures prepared using ISSB standards.

A separate analysis by the IFRS Foundation on some of the main features in these 30 jurisdictional frameworks found that jurisdictions see the value of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions disclosures. All 29 jurisdictions that have finalized or published proposals on climate-related disclosures have included Scope 3 GHG emissions disclosure requirements, with some allowing or proposing brief extensions of transitional reliefs to prepare for the requirements.

Jurisdictions also see the value of including industry-specific disclosure requirements, according to the analysis. Some 28 jurisdictions have included or are considering requirements for industry-specific disclosure. Only two of the 30 jurisdictions have signaled their intention to make industry-specific disclosure voluntary, at least initially.

“This progress report underscores the significant and encouraging progress in disclosure of climate-related information,” said ISSB chair Emmanuel Faber in a statement. “But further action is needed to address the fact investors are still not receiving the information they need to assess and price appropriately climate and other sustainability-related risks and opportunities. Through jurisdictional initiatives and the voluntary choices companies are making, often in response to investor demand, we continue to see momentum build. The introduction of sustainability-related disclosure requirements into regulatory frameworks through the adoption or other use of ISSB standards, building on the strong foundations laid through the TCFD recommendations and progressing towards a more comprehensive and assurable set of requirements, is of vital importance for the healthy functioning of capital markets around the world.”

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International Sustainability Standards Board chair Emmanuel Faber at the Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit in London.

The ISSB found that 90% of the jurisdictions have included or are considering requirements for disclosure covering all sustainability-related risks and opportunities over time. Some jurisdictions are initially focused on the disclosure of climate-related risks and opportunities.

In some cases, jurisdictions have moved closer to the ISSB standards compared to their initial proposals in response to calls from stakeholders for greater alignment with ISSB standards and to secure comparability of disclosures by adhering to the global baseline.

One important aspect of the introduction of ISSB standards into regulatory frameworks is that a number of jurisdictions intend to introduce industry-specific disclosure requirements for the first time. Many of those stem from the standards were originally produced by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, which was absorbed into the ISSB. The SASB standards provide an important component of the ISSB’s global baseline of disclosures supporting high-quality implementation of IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information.

The Financial Stability Board also published its 2024 progress report on Achieving Consistent and Comparable Climate-related Disclosures on Tuesday, summarizing the main findings from the IFRS Foundation’s report. 

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Accounting

IAASB tweaks standards on working with outside experts

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The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is proposing to tailor some of its standards to align with recent additions to the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants’ International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants when it comes to using the work of an external expert.

The proposed narrow-scope amendments involve minor changes to several IAASB standards:

  • ISA 620, Using the Work of an Auditor’s Expert;
  • ISRE 2400 (Revised), Engagements to Review Historical Financial Statements;
  • ISAE 3000 (Revised), Assurance Engagements Other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information;
  • ISRS 4400 (Revised), Agreed-upon Procedures Engagements.

The IAASB is asking for comments via a digital response template that can be found on the IAASB website by July 24, 2025.

In December 2023, the IESBA approved an exposure draft for proposed revisions to the IESBA’s Code of Ethics related to using the work of an external expert. The proposals included three new sections to the Code of Ethics, including provisions for professional accountants in public practice; professional accountants in business and sustainability assurance practitioners. The IESBA approved the provisions on using the work of an external expert at its December 2024 meeting, establishing an ethical framework to guide accountants and sustainability assurance practitioners in evaluating whether an external expert has the necessary competence, capabilities and objectivity to use their work, as well as provisions on applying the Ethics Code’s conceptual framework when using the work of an outside expert.  

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Tariffs will hit low-income Americans harder than richest, report says

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President Donald Trump’s tariffs would effectively cause a tax increase for low-income families that is more than three times higher than what wealthier Americans would pay, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The report from the progressive think tank outlined the outcomes for Americans of all backgrounds if the tariffs currently in effect remain in place next year. Those making $28,600 or less would have to spend 6.2% more of their income due to higher prices, while the richest Americans with income of at least $914,900 are expected to spend 1.7% more. Middle-income families making between $55,100 and $94,100 would pay 5% more of their earnings. 

Trump has imposed the steepest U.S. duties in more than a century, including a 145% tariff on many products from China, a 25% rate on most imports from Canada and Mexico, duties on some sectors such as steel and aluminum and a baseline 10% tariff on the rest of the country’s trading partners. He suspended higher, customized tariffs on most countries for 90 days.

Economists have warned that costs from tariff increases would ultimately be passed on to U.S. consumers. And while prices will rise for everyone, lower-income families are expected to lose a larger portion of their budgets because they tend to spend more of their earnings on goods, including food and other necessities, compared to wealthier individuals.

Food prices could rise by 2.6% in the short run due to tariffs, according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab. Among all goods impacted, consumers are expected to face the steepest price hikes for clothing at 64%, the report showed. 

The Yale Budget Lab projected that the tariffs would result in a loss of $4,700 a year on average for American households.

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Accounting

At Schellman, AI reshapes a firm’s staffing needs

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Artificial intelligence is just getting started in the accounting world, but it is already helping firms like technology specialist Schellman do more things with fewer people, allowing the firm to scale back hiring and reduce headcount in certain areas through natural attrition. 

Schellman CEO Avani Desai said there have definitely been some shifts in headcount at the Top 100 Firm, though she stressed it was nothing dramatic, as it mostly reflects natural attrition combined with being more selective with hiring. She said the firm has already made an internal decision to not reduce headcount in force, as that just indicates they didn’t hire properly the first time. 

“It hasn’t been about reducing roles but evolving how we do work, so there wasn’t one specific date where we ‘started’ the reduction. It’s been more case by case. We’ve held back on refilling certain roles when we saw opportunities to streamline, especially with the use of new technologies like AI,” she said. 

One area where the firm has found such opportunities has been in the testing of certain cybersecurity controls, particularly within the SOC framework. The firm examined all the controls it tests on the service side and asked which ones require human judgment or deep expertise. The answer was a lot of them. But for the ones that don’t, AI algorithms have been able to significantly lighten the load. 

“[If] we don’t refill a role, it’s because the need actually has changed, or the process has improved so significantly [that] the workload is lighter or shared across the smarter system. So that’s what’s happening,” said Desai. 

Outside of client services like SOC control testing and reporting, the firm has found efficiencies in administrative functions as well as certain internal operational processes. On the latter point, Desai noted that Schellman’s engineers, including the chief information officer, have been using AI to help develop code, which means they’re not relying as much on outside expertise on the internal service delivery side of things. There are still people in the development process, but their roles are changing: They’re writing less code, and doing more reviewing of code before it gets pushed into production, saving time and creating efficiencies. 

“The best way for me to say this is, to us, this has been intentional. We paused hiring in a few areas where we saw overlaps, where technology was really working,” said Desai.

However, even in an age awash with AI, Schellman acknowledges there are certain jobs that need a human, at least for now. For example, the firm does assessments for the FedRAMP program, which is needed for cloud service providers to contract with certain government agencies. These assessments, even in the most stable of times, can be long and complex engagements, to say nothing of the less predictable nature of the current government. As such, it does not make as much sense to reduce human staff in this area. 

“The way it is right now for us to do FedRAMP engagements, it’s a very manual process. There’s a lot of back and forth between us and a third party, the government, and we don’t see a lot of overall application or technology help… We’re in the federal space and you can imagine, [with] what’s going on right now, there’s a big changing market condition for clients and their pricing pressure,” said Desai. 

As Schellman reduces staff levels in some places, it is increasing them in others. Desai said the firm is actively hiring in certain areas. In particular, it’s adding staff in technical cybersecurity (e.g., penetration testers), the aforementioned FedRAMP engagements, AI assessment (in line with recently becoming an ISO 42001 certification body) and in some client-facing roles like marketing and sales. 

“So, to me, this isn’t about doing more with less … It’s about doing more of the right things with the right people,” said Desai. 

While these moves have resulted in savings, she said that was never really the point, so whatever the firm has saved from staffing efficiencies it has reinvested in its tech stack to build its service line further. When asked for an example, she said the firm would like to focus more on penetration testing by building a SaaS tool for it. While Schellman has a proof of concept developed, she noted it would take a lot of money and time to deploy a full solution — both of which the firm now has more of because of its efficiency moves. 

“What is the ‘why’ behind these decisions? The ‘why’ for us isn’t what I think you traditionally see, which is ‘We need to get profitability high. We need to have less people do more things.’ That’s not what it is like,” said Desai. “I want to be able to focus on quality. And the only way I think I can focus on quality is if my people are not focusing on things that don’t matter … I feel like I’m in a much better place because the smart people that I’ve hired are working on the riskiest and most complicated things.”

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