U.S. Silent on Joining Global Accord on Sustainability Standards

Mandatory sustainability reporting standards are brewing for companies in the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference starting this weekend, posing the question of what course the U.S. will choose if it spurns the path chosen by other industrialized countries.

“The decision has been taken to use IFRS, and other standards are dead,” Richard Murphy, an accounting professor at Sheffield University who has written extensively on sustainability reporting, said, referring to environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting standards being developed by the IFRS Foundation, parent of the International Accounting Standards Board. An announcement ...