On 28 and 29 September, the ESG Summit Europe was held in Madrid, bringing together more than 3,000 opinion leaders, innovators and experts from the sector to discuss the latest trends, challenges and opportunities in the field of sustainability, reflecting the commitment of Spanish institutions to respond to the challenges of the 21st century.
The general director of the Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE, and vice-president of the International Organisation for Standardization, ISO, Javier García, participated as a guest speaker in the panel "Sustainability reports: Future implications for companies and financial institutions," held on Friday 29. The table was complemented by three senior sustainability managers from key ESG organisations: José Luis Blasco from ACCIONA, Alberto Castilla from EY Spain, and Pablo Bascones from PwC Spain.
During his speech, Javier García emphasised that the international ISO, European EN and Spanish UNE standards are support tools to help organisations comply with ESG reporting frameworks. In other words, that standards are a way for organisations to take advantage of the efforts they are already making to comply with norms, using them as reliable sources of data for reporting. This reliabilty is also passed on as a benefit to the work carried out by auditors/verifiers of the reported information. In this regard, current frameworks recognise the use of standards: the ESRS 2 'General disclosures' of the legacy act adopting EFRAG standards includes a reference to the use of technical standards.
This reporting framework addresses the sustainability challenges currently identified as priorities, but others may emerge in the future. Therefore, a system of regular review of standards is in place to ensure they remain useful to industry and society. Furthermore, standardisation activity is constantly advancing and the work programmes continuously incorporate aspects demanded by private and public stakeholders as new draft standards. Proof of this are the standards covering topics such as the circular economy (E), gender equality (S) and compliance (G).
According to this study, Spanish companies place the ecological transition and sustainability at the centre of their strategy to strengthen their growth, in line with one of the priorities of the UNE is to make standards and good practices available to companies and organisations so they can achieve their objectives.
