Climate Week NYC 2024 takeaways: Evolving reporting standards and data quality inspire action

By Kristen Sullivan, Audit & Assurance partner, Sustainability and ESG Services, Deloitte & Touche LLP

Talking points

• Climate Week NYC 2024, which ran September 23–27, brought together more than 100,000 attendees for 700+ in-person and virtual sustainability-focused events.
• Prominent topics included collaboration, reporting transparency, and trust in sustainability data.
• The shift toward assurance also took center stage during the week.

Climate Week NYC 2024 did not disappoint. This year’s conference not only generated impressive volumes of optimism and electricity; it rallied conference goers around a particularly fitting theme—”It’s Time”—in a year that saw sweeping global climate regulation take effect. Against this backdrop of urgency and expectation, Deloitte assembled business leaders, influencers, and inspiring icons like Dr. Jane Goodall to spark insights and action.

Big takeaways

My top three takeaways from the week centered on collective action, reporting transparency, and trust in sustainability data and reporting. These themes continually came to the fore in numerous sessions, including multiple panel discussions I had the pleasure of moderating. Here’s why they may matter to your work as a finance and accounting professional.

Sustainability is a team sport

The importance of governance, clear roles and responsibilities, and accountability across an organization came up frequently throughout the week. Moving from voluntary to regulatory sustainability reporting requires working collaboratively to “build the machine” for sustainability data management and reporting, much like the decades-long process of building our financial reporting system. Two key differences: Sustainability data is much more complex, and it took decades to build the policies, systems, processes, and controls for financial reporting. We’re now trying to do all of this for sustainability reporting in just three years.

Panelists brought these themes to life in stories of collaboration involving internal and external partners—from IT and procurement teams to suppliers and government agencies to non-governmental organizations. For sustainability leaders feeling burdened by reporting, these real-world examples demonstrated how leading practices such as accelerating change management and leveraging established management systems and capabilities across the organization can help create space for strategic focus.

Transparency and evolving standards

Markets need information and incentives to act. A number of Climate Week events underscored the evolving climate data and reporting expectations of investors, consumers, and other stakeholders in a variety of markets. Translating climate science and data into corporate climate risk quantification has become table stakes. Leading market standards are now focused on bringing transparency to scenario analysis and the methodologies that underpin them. Today, data—characterized by reliability, analytical competence, and transparency—can truly promote confidence and comparability.

Ongoing progress by the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the release of the Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD) reinforce the continuous evolution of sustainability reporting infrastructure and serve to highlight the importance of the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB) role as the newly established global baseline and strategic tool to guide corporate evaluation and integration of evolving market initiatives, such as TNFD and TISFD among others.

The game-changing shift to data quality and assurance

It is difficult to conceive a trusted system of sustainability reporting without high-quality reporting, assurance, and ethical standards. This theme came through loud and clear in discussions throughout the week. As noted, the ISSB is demonstrating how a global baseline for sustainability standards may accelerate transparent, consistent, and trusted sustainability reporting. The game-changing element of leading regulatory frameworks to require assurance also took center stage. This development has shifted the focus to assurance providers and the IAASB’s release of the International Standard on Sustainability Assurance 5000 (ISSA 5000) to serve as the new global baseline for sustainability assurance was approved on September 20. Meanwhile, sustainability independence and ethics standards from the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) are expected to be finalized by the end of the year.

It’s time

Findings from the Deloitte 2024 CxO Sustainability Report, featured in many Climate Week events, served as a barometer for the collective progress the business community is making toward sustainability. Consider these factoids from the report:

• 85% of CxOs say they have increased investments in sustainability in the past year—up from 75% in 2023.
• 70% of executives expect climate change to have a high/very high impact on strategies/operations over the next three years.
• 45% of CxOs say they are transforming their business model to help address climate change/sustainability in a way that is central to their strategy.

I’m incredibly optimistic as we head toward the end of 2024 with new sustainability regulation and accountability mechanisms now in place. These market developments are not just about regulation; they’re about influencing business strategy and performance. In the words of Jane Goodall: “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

What role can Deloitte play

Deloitte can advise you on ways to understand and quantify climate-related risks and opportunities in a way that prioritizes assurance, reliability, and trust. For more information, visit our sustainability regulation page, access our 2024 Sustainability Action Report with industry-specific insights, and leverage our ESG SelfAssess™ tool. You can also download our 2024 CxO Sustainability Report for additional insights.

The services described herein are illustrative in nature and are intended to demonstrate our experience and capabilities in these areas; however, due to independence restrictions that may apply to audit clients (including affiliates) of Deloitte & Touche LLP, we may be unable to provide certain services based on individual facts and circumstances.

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