Sustainability Standards Advisory Forum—Call for candidates

The IFRS Foundation (Foundation) invites nominations of candidates for membership of the Sustainability Standards Advisory Forum (SSAF). Relevant jurisdictional and regional bodies may nominate themselves or another eligible organisation.

The SSAF will be established in 2022. The advice of its members will help the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to develop IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. Resources about the SSAF, including the Terms of Reference and the Memorandum of Understanding, are available on the SSAF page.

Candidates for membership

The SSAF will comprise 12-16 non-voting members, represented by 12-16 individuals, plus the Chair. The Chair or the Vice-Chair of the ISSB acts as the Chair of the SSAF. To ensure a broad geographical representation and balance of the major economic regions in the world, the 12 to 16 members shall be from the following geographical regions:

• one member from Africa;
• three members from the Americas (North and South);
• three members from the Asia/Oceania region;
• three members from Europe (including non EU); and
• six members appointed from any area of the world at large, including international organisations, subject to maintaining overall geographical balance.

A minimum of four members of the SSAF will be representatives of emerging economies.

Membership of the SSAF is open to all relevant jurisdictional and regional bodies with existing expertise in sustainability-related reporting relevant to the development of IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards that are interoperable with jurisdictional sustainability-related reporting requirements.

Candidates for membership are asked to confirm that they would be willing to sign and agree to the Memorandum of Understanding with the Foundation, and, in particular, to provide the required commitments as set out in Section 2 of that document based on the Terms of Reference. The SSAF Terms of Reference have been informed in consultation with a working group of jurisdictional bodies.
For its part, the Foundation confirms that it will formally meet the commitments set out in Section 3 of the Memorandum of Understanding.

Criteria for membership

Candidates should explain how they meet, or plan to meet, the criteria for membership in support of the commitments set out in the Memorandum of Understanding. In particular, any candidate should demonstrate:

• its technical competence—in other words, that it has the necessary technical resources, including human capital resources with standard-setting expertise, technical experience and practical knowledge of financial reporting issues, to enable it to contribute meaningfully and participate actively in substantive technical discussions; and
• the scale, degree and expertise of the resources available to the candidate that will enable it to participate as an active member of the SSAF, including an ability and willingness to fund the travel and accommodation costs of representatives and to devote sufficient time and other resources, where necessary, to the preparation of material for SSAF meetings; and
• the candidate’s knowledge and experience of sustainability-related reporting at a jurisdictional and regional level and awareness of jurisdictional and regional developments that are relevant to the interoperability of IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards with jurisdictional requirements to meet wider stakeholder information needs.
  

Nominations

Nominations and applications are invited by 11 July 2022. They should be sent to the following email address: issbprojects@ifrs.org. Membership will be on the basis of organisational representation. Candidate organisations are required to select a single designated individual who will be their representative on the SSAF. The individuals should meet the criteria set out in paragraph 2.2.3 of the Terms of Reference.

Process for selection

Candidates will be selected on the basis of a geographical balance, the membership criteria and other factors referred to above. The Foundation will consider all candidates for selection by taking these issues into account. The final selection of members of the group will be made by the Trustees of the Foundation, having taken advice from the ISSB Chair and Vice-Chair.