SEC honored again by UN

THE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said last Monday it has received another recognition from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) for promoting sustainability and sustainable development goals reporting in the Philippines.

The SEC received the “ISAR Honours 2022” in the national category during a ceremony held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on November 2, besting 45 other organizations from other countries.

The regulator shared the stage with the World Bank and the International Finance Corp., the UN Global Compact and the World Economic Forum, which received the same award in the international category.

The SEC previously received the International Standards of Accounting and Reporting Honours 2019 for promoting sustainability and Sdgreporting by requiring publicly-listed companies to submit sustainability reports annually.

The ISAR Honours recognizes policy, institutional and capacitybuilding initiatives, publicly available at the national or international level, that encourage and assist enterprises to publish data on their contribution to SDG implementation, and that assist governments in collecting such data for SDG monitoring needs.

The award is named after the International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR), through which the UNCTAD supports public and private sector efforts to enhance the quality and comparability of companies’ reporting on their contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its usefulness for monitoring the implementation of the SDGS (Sustainable Development Goals).

“I would like to thank the organizers of ISAR Honours and accept this year’s award wholeheartedly with the hope that other jurisdictions will be inspired to immediately adopt or to continue to carry out fully their sustainable practices,” SEC Chairman Emilio B. Aquino said during the ceremony.

“The SEC Philippines has since been active in enforcing its sustainability guidelines with the UN SDGS at its core, partnering with key stakeholders and conducting several capacity building programs that builds on sustainability as a way of life and as a way forward for a more sustainable future. We have been loud and emphatic in saying our battle cry that: Sustainability is everyone’s responsibility,” Aquino said.

The Unctad particularly recognized the workshops, trainings, seminars and partnerships organized by the SEC to increase awareness, advance knowledge, and build capacity in sustainability and SDG reporting in the Philippine corporate sector, following the issuance of the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for Publicly Listed Companies through Memorandum Circular 4 (Series of 2019).

Prior to the first mandatory submission of sustainability reports, the SEC conducted a series of workshops to capacitate the listed firms in the proper preparation of their annual sustainability reports. The capacitybuilding exercises and fora were tailored to address both sector-specific and general public concerns.