On 17 October, the Spanish Association for Standardization hosted the UNE Conference: “Standards improve sustainability reporting for businesses" to mark World Standards Day, which discussed the key role of standards when helping organisations in their ESG (environmental, social and good governance) reporting.
The keynote speakers at the conference were Sergio Mujica, Secretary-General of ISO (International Organization for Standardization), who opened the conference; and the Managing Director of Industrial Strategy and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, Jordi García Brustenga, who closed the event. Other attendees were Alfredo Berges, Chairperson of UNE; Luis Rodulfo, UNE's vice-president and member of the CEPYME Executive Committee; and Javier García, Director General of UNE and Vice-President of ISO. The session discussed the corporate vision and success stories regarding standards and organisations, such as the collaboration between ISO and CEN and CENELEC with IFRS and EFRAG, respectively, to improve sustainability reporting.
During his speech, Sergio Mujica emphasised the important role of global and ISO standards in responding effectively to the major challenges of the business fabric, such as ESG objectives (environmental, social and good governance) and the SDGs, in line with the ISO 2030 Strategy.
Jordi García Brustenga declared that standardisation and UNE are both engines of competitiveness in Spain's industrial strategy and highlighted the importance of quality in public policies.
The event raised the topic of the needs of companies when writing sustainability reports, and how UNE Spanish standards, EN European standards, and the international ISO and IEC standards help organisations in their progress towards meeting their ESG goals, while improving the soundness and reliability of their reporting.
The UNE Report "Standards improve sustainability reporting for businesses", was also presented, the purpose of which is to help Spanish organisations to meet the reporting obligations of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) with regard to environmental, social and governance aspects, as well as the entities that verify this information.
This publication includes a representative compilation of existing ESG standards applicable to all types of organisations, with the aim of promoting their use as a support for sustainability reporting, and for organisations to present information based on these. These standards facilitate the design of strategies, the definition of policies and decision-making.
The conference highlighted that, thanks to standardisation, collaboration is taking place between entities that define these reporting frameworks (IFRS globally and EFRAG in Europe) to raise awareness of standards as tools for organisations to move ahead with ESG matters.
The seminar was attended by the following speakers: Pablo García, from Forética; Pedro del Pozo, from UNESPA; María Moreno, from SEOPAN; Salvador Marín, from EFRAG and the General Council of Economists; José Miguel Tudela, from ENAGAS; and Paloma García and Iván Moya, from UNE.
