How ready is the UK for UKSRS?

KPMG UK has just published a readiness assessment of the top 100 UK listed companies against IFRS S2 — the international climate standard that UK SRS is based on.

The findings are striking. After years of TCFD-aligned reporting, most large listed companies feel well advanced. The KPMG analysis suggests that confidence may be somewhat misplaced.

Two lines in particular stood out to me.

"UK SRS is pulling sustainability reporting into the same discipline as financial reporting — structured, consistent and evidence-based. Narrative-only disclosures won't be enough"
and
"UK SRS requires more integrated storytelling on resilience, strategy and long-term value creation."

This is the shift that changes everything for communications teams.

For years, sustainability communications has operated in a different register to financial reporting. Purposeful. Aspirational. Broad. Built for a general audience.

But UK SRS doesn't want a general audience story. It wants the same rigour, consistency and evidential discipline that goes into a set of financial statements.

That means the climate narrative in your annual report, your CEO's public statements, your investor presentations, your press releases — all of it needs to be coherent with what your disclosures actually say. Not decorating over it. Not softening it. Not amplifying it beyond what the evidence supports.

KPMG also flags that improving the quality of sustainability disclosures "cannot sit with a sustainability team alone — it requires closer collaboration across sustainability, operations, risk and finance."

I'd add one more team to that list.

Communications.

Because when the finance team has done the rigorous work of connecting sustainability to financial outcomes — when the disclosures are robust, evidence-based and investor-grade — someone still needs to make sure the public-facing narrative is telling the same story.

That gap between what gets disclosed and what gets said publicly is precisely where reputations are made or damaged.

UK SRS arrives in 2027. The window to get ahead of it is now.

Source: KPMG UK — ISSB Readiness: The UK Market's Moment of Truth. Link in comments.