New Transparency Rules from European Parliament’s Legal Affairs

ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accounts) welcomes the new rule issued by the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs (JURI) committee. The rule comes with text on disclosure and non-financial and diversity information. This new rule affects nearly 6,000 large undertakings and 500 employees across the European Union. According to the new rule – the undertakings must include an environmental report along with the management report and non-financial statement. The report must include social and employee related aspects, human rights, anti-corruption and bribery issues as well as the diversity of the board members.

According to Helen Brand OBE, chief executive of ACCA – ACCA welcome this new rule and mentioned it as an essential move towards making a transparent and sustainable growth of the organization. This is a crucial time when the organizations have to establish the long-term competitiveness as well as restore the trust of the stakeholders. Additionally, the organizations have to keep their eyes on reducing administrative burdens for public interest. There are numbers of organizations that disclose their information about their diversity policy based on age, gender, qualification and professional background.

Additionally, she said that, transparency comes to sustainability because risk management and its long-term effectiveness completely depends on diversity information and non-financial information. This is a perfect rule for the current situation in today’s European economy. This is an integrated part of building sustainable economic governance.

A recent research conducted by ACCA named “Understanding Investors series”, depicts the view of the investors. The investors clearly stated that they support non-financial reporting. The most remarkable part of this report is that 93% of the investors support and appreciate this new endorsement.

Lastly, Helen Brand added – today’s investors are very advanced, educated and sophisticated. They pay enough attention in all of the company activities, not only in profits but they are also interested in other business benefits too. Surprisingly, the recent study conducted by the ACCA shows that, the finance chiefs are also interested in non-financial reporting. This all shows the importance of non-financial information in current times.