Steven Maijoor, Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), has recently delivered a keynote speech at the webinar “A new standard for a new capitalism: accelerating corporate responsibility through non-financial information” organised by the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Recovery.
In his speech, Mr Maijoor highlighted three apparent paradoxes of sustainability reporting:
- the need to ensure that reporting standards are, at the same time, international and jurisdiction-specific;
- the importance of ensuring that the disclosure standards are sufficiently robust to help prevent the risk of greenwashing, while at the same time allowing for sufficient flexibility for entities to tell their own story; and
- the difficulty of establishing a robust and extensive disclosure regime covering as many companies as possible so to ensure that information by (actual or potential) investee companies is available, while maintaining a proportionate set of requirements especially for smaller companies.
At the event participated Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Recovery, Olivia Grégoire, Secretary of State for the Social, Solidarity and Responsible Economy, Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for Financial services, financial stability and Capital Markets Union, Amparo Lopez Senovilla, Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Spain, Members of the European Parliament and other representatives of the public and private sector.
