ROADMAP FOR FINANCE LEADERS

The document outlines an eight-step process for finance leaders to align GHG emissions reporting with financial accounting. It emphasizes the need for cross-functional collaboration between finance and sustainability teams, the application of risk and materiality assessments, and the extension of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and internal controls to ensure GHG data is reliable, verifiable, and decision-useful for capital markets.

• Finance professionals are critical to ensuring GHG emissions reporting is timely, reliable, and consistent by applying an accounting approach aligned with financial reporting, which allows data to be verifiable and subject to independent external assurance.
• New mandatory standards, including the ISSB's S1 and S2 (effective January 1, 2024), the EFRAG's ESRS (specifically E1 for climate change), and regulations in the UK, Aotearoa New Zealand, and proposed US SEC rules, require GHG emissions to be reported alongside annual or financial reports.
• The roadmap proposes eight specific steps for CFOs and controllers: driving collaboration with sustainability leaders, conducting joint risk and materiality assessments, reporting to the audit committee for approval, developing an internal GHG policy and data manual, expanding the chart of accounts in ERP systems, training staff on data collection, expanding internal controls, and sharing knowledge for continual improvement.
• Risk and materiality assessments are essential for determining which Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions to track. The document distinguishes between 'investor-focused materiality' (single materiality), used by the US SEC and IFRS, and 'double materiality' (impact materiality), required by the ESRS, which considers both the organization's impact on the world and the world's impact on the organization.
• To maximize the usefulness of GHG information for investors and auditors, the document recommends using 'financial control boundaries' when consolidating data at the group level, as this aligns GHG data with the financial dataset for easier completeness testing and KPI calculation.
• Audit committees must expand their oversight to include sustainability disclosures, ensuring that the financial impacts of material climate risks are reflected in audited financial statements and that there is consistency across general purpose financial reporting and other public disclosures.

APA

We Mean Business Coalition (2023). ROADMAP FOR FINANCE LEADERS. https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/8-Steps-Enhance-GHG-Reporting.pdf

Chicago

We Mean Business Coalition. ROADMAP FOR FINANCE LEADERS. 2023. https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/8-Steps-Enhance-GHG-Reporting.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=We Mean Business Coalition |title=ROADMAP FOR FINANCE LEADERS |date=May 2023 |url=https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/8-Steps-Enhance-GHG-Reporting.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wemeanbusinesscoalition2023roadmap, author = {{We Mean Business Coalition}}, title = {{ROADMAP FOR FINANCE LEADERS}}, institution = {We Mean Business Coalition}, year = {2023}, month = may, url = {https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/8-Steps-Enhance-GHG-Reporting.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }