Corporate reporting – government publishes response to consultation and final UK sustainability reporting standards

The government has published its response to the consultation it launched in June 2025 on the proposed new UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, along with final versions of the standards UK SRS S1 and UK SRS S2.

In June 2023, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) issued two new international sustainability reporting standards – IFRS S1, which sets out the basic requirements for sustainability-related disclosures, and IFRS S2, on climate-related disclosures (aligned with, but not identical to, the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework).

As IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 are voluntary international standards, they only have legal effect if implemented through national law. In its consultation response, the government confirmed that it is endorsing IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 and has issued final versions of UK SRS S1 (General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information) and UK SRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures) for voluntary use in the UK.

In January this year, the FCA published a consultation on aligning its requirements for listed companies on climate-related reporting with the ISSB’s standards (based on the draft versions of UK SRS S1 and UK SRS S2 contained in the government’s June 2025 consultation). For more details on the FCA’s proposals, see our blog post here and our Corporate Governance snapshot here.

The government has said that it will consider whether to require private companies to report against the new UK Standards as part of its consultation on the modernisation of corporate reporting in the UK (announced in October 2025 – see our blog post here for more details).