Vladimir Skobarev Participates in Sustainability Forum

Vladimir Skobarev, a Partner and the Head of Corporate Governance and Sustainability Services at FBK, has participated in a forum titled “Challenges 2030. Sustainable Development of Regions”, which was organised by the Russian Managers Association. He spoke in a session dedicated to the improvement of corporate governance practices as one of the components of the ESG agenda.

Vladimir Skobarev mentioned the trend of rising interest in the sustainability agenda among different regions, which is evidenced by an increased number of reports with related disclosures. He also said that these documents lack consistency of terminology and methodology. In addition, he underlined that the use of the ESG notion in respect of disclosures about activities of regions is rather controversial.

“Reporting standards that are based on ESG approaches are, first of all, corporate standards that allow for disclosure of the integral value of companies, rather than just business value that depends on financial metrics. It would be reasonable for regions to analyse their activities and report on sustainable development using indicators that refer to the sustainable development goals and objectives formulated by the UN. That would provide for the unification of approaches applied at the country and regional levels and comparability of outputs,” Vladimir Skobarev said.