Accountancy Europe warmly congratulates Patrick de Cambourg as the inaugural chair of the Sustainability Reporting Board (SRB), established under the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG).

This is a very significant position to move forward the European sustainability reporting standards (ESRS) setting process. The ESRS will consolidate sustainability reporting, improve comparability, and contribute to Europe becoming the first climate neutral continent by 2050.

Mr de Cambourg’s prior experience as EFRAG Board Member and Chair of the PTF-NFRS (Project Task Force on Non-Financial Reporting Standards) makes him very suitable to guide a high-quality process. He will be able to draw from his experience with sustainability reporting in France and his work for the French government (see more in this report).

The inaugural SRB Chair can count on Accountancy Europe’s support to help deliver on clear and pragmatic standards credible to the wider stakeholder community. The ESRS’ legitimacy will heavily depend on a robust due process, and not just a fast one. Given the rapid worsening of the climate and environmental crisis, we believe that focusing on a few critical indicators of business change in ESRS will be faster and more effective than developing an exhaustive compliance machinery.

As the umbrella organisation for 1 million professional accountants, we are part of the SRB under the European Stakeholders Chapter. See also our:

• statement European sustainability reporting standards: shaping EU’s green future
• feedback to the first set of draft European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) issued by EFRAG
• letter to Commissioner McGuinness outlining our main comments on these ESRS