ESG disclosures now mandatory

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COMPANIES listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) and the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) will, starting in January, be required to report on sustainability issues as part of their financial disclosures.
This comes as investors have been increasingly incorporating non-financial factors — environmental, social, and governance (ESG) — into their analysis, which has prompted regulators to make them mandatory.
The ZSE and VFEX’s updated listing rules that were issued in 2019 allowed for a transitional period for such disclosures before enforcement.
Despite this reprieve, a number of companies have voluntarily adopted the practice, while a number of reporting institutions, such as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures are either developing or have already established standards for such disclosures.