Mind the gap
A while back, I came across a podcast conversation that stuck with me.
It was an ICAEW podcast featuring two former colleagues from my time at the ISSB — Ravi Abeywardana, now Director of Sustainability Reporting and Assurance at ICAEW, and Richard Barker, a board member of the ISSB, the body that wrote the international standards that UKSRS is based on.
One thing Richard said has stayed with me ever since.
He said that sustainability reporting has historically been owned by the sustainability teams — but we're now seeing a move from the sustainability team into the finance team.
That move is somewhat underway. And it has enormous implications — not just for finance teams, but for communications teams too.
Because here's what that shift means in practice.
The information that companies are now required to disclose under UKSRS isn't about what your business is doing for the planet. It's about how your business is exposed to climate risk, transition risk, supply chain vulnerability, and the financial effects of all of the above.
That's a fundamentally different kind of story. And it requires a fundamentally different kind of communications strategy.
Most sustainability communications was built for the impact era — purpose-led, values-driven, broad public audience. But the audiences that now matter most are investors, analysts, and regulators. And they're reading your sustainability disclosures the same way they read your financial statements.
Richard also made the point that if the new reporting requirements feel dramatically new to a business, it probably means either the requirements aren't well understood — or the business isn't managing what it should be managing.
I'd add a third possibility.
The business may be managing it just fine. The reporting team may understand it perfectly. But the communications team hasn't caught up yet.
That gap — between what gets disclosed and what gets communicated publicly — is a reputational risk hiding in plain sight.
UKSRS arrives in 2027. The window to get ahead of it is now.
*Source: ICAEW Behind the Numbers podcast — UK SRS, what's in it and the FCA consultation.*