Research Note: XBRL Tagging is Coming to Sustainability Disclosures

The changing landscape of corporate sustainability disclosures is making ESG data more widely available, comparable, and reliable than ever. To make this data more easily accessible and readable, it is also being digitized. Tagging in particular makes it possible for both machines and humans to find exactly the quantitative and qualitative data they’re looking for. That’s why, just like for financial disclosures, it’s becoming mandatory.

Key Insights

• XBRL is a reporting digitization standard widely used for digital reporting of financial, performance, risk, and compliance information.
• Digitized and XBRL-tagged corporate disclosures benefit all capital market participants (companies, investors, data aggregators, and regulators) through easier access to, and more accurate use of, ‘as reported’ information.
• Digital and XBRL-tagged financial disclosures are already mandatory in jurisdictions across the world, representing more than 90% of global market capitalization.
• Perhaps driven by the growing convergence of financial and sustainability disclosures, standard setters and regulators are moving swiftly to implement XBRL tagging for disclosures of ESG and sustainability information.
• Companies are encouraged to incorporate digitization of their data and disclosures from the beginning of their reporting process, and to consider voluntarily producing digital XBRL-tagged disclosures in the absence of regulations.

Download the research note for an in-depth analysis of how XBRL is shaping ESG and how it could affect your reporting strategy.