Reporting frameworks and standards

The IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards are the global baseline for telling investors how sustainability issues affect a company's prospects. IFRS S1 sets the general requirements and IFRS S2 covers climate. Both took effect for annual reporting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2024. Singapore is the reason most local companies meet them: SGX RegCo's Practice Note 7.6 requires listed issuers to apply IFRS S2 plus the climate-relevant parts of IFRS S1, phased by company size.

The GRI Standards are the world's most widely used framework for reporting an organisation's impacts on the economy, environment and people. They are modular: three Universal Standards that everyone applies, Sector Standards for high-impact industries, and Topic Standards selected against the topics a company has judged material. They are free to download and are named in SGX Practice Note 7.6 as a recognised reporting framework.

The ISO 14064 family is the international rulebook for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions and, crucially, for having someone independent check them. It covers organisation-level inventories, project-level reductions, the conduct of a verification engagement, and the requirements placed on verification bodies and their people. In Singapore it is the backbone of the assurance system: the Singapore Accreditation Council accredits validation and verification bodies against it, and SS ISO 14064-3 is one of the two standards ACRA will accept for mandatory climate assurance.

The GHG Protocol is the measurement rulebook underneath almost every corporate emissions number you will see. Its Corporate Standard defines organisational boundaries and the Scope 1, 2 and 3 split; the 2015 Scope 2 Guidance governs electricity emissions; and the 2011 Corporate Value Chain Standard defines the 15 Scope 3 categories. Singapore points at it by name: SGX Practice Note 7.6 paragraph 4.21 requires emissions to be measured in accordance with the Corporate Standard (2004).

The TCFD created the four-pillar structure - governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets - that almost all climate reporting now uses. The Financial Stability Board announced in July 2023 that its work was complete and the task force disbanded in October 2023. Its recommendations live on inside IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, so a company applying both meets them.

SBTi is the body that validates whether a company's emissions targets are consistent with climate science. It is voluntary, but for many Singapore companies it is effectively demanded by customers, lenders and investors. Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0 was published on 11 June 2026 and changes the rules substantially, including basing Scope 2 emissions targets only on the physical, location-based inventory.

TNFD is the voluntary framework for disclosing nature-related issues - biodiversity, ecosystems and the services they provide - to investors and lenders. Its framework, including its LEAP assessment approach, is the basis the ISSB is drawing on for a forthcoming IFRS Practice Statement on nature-related disclosures. TNFD has indicated it would conclude its own technical work programme depending on the outcome of that ISSB process, likely in 2027.

CDP runs a disclosure platform through which companies report environmental data, typically in response to requests from investors and from customers in their supply chain. It is not a standard-setter in the way the ISSB, GRI or ISO are: it collects and scores disclosures rather than issuing accounting rules. GRI publishes a mapping from GRI 102 and GRI 103 to CDP's climate change and energy questions, dated 21 October 2025.