Francesco Perrini Is the Italian Representative to Accountancy Europe

Francesco Perrini, Full Professor in Bocconi Department of Management and Technology, has been appointed as the Italian representative to Accountancy Europe's "Sustainability Reporting Standards Working Party" expert group, at the suggestion of the President of the Ordine Nazionale dei Dottori Commercialisti (the Italian body of professional, chartered accountants). The group is responsible for contributing to the development of European sustainability reporting standards.

Until now, anyone could write a social report, non-financial statement or sustainability report using qualitative, quantitative or monetary indicators without following a shared "accounting standard." With the Green New Deal, a process of formalizing sustainability reports has begun, which will lead by 2024 to standard principles for sustainability reporting in Europe: ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standard).

In fact, the EU's EFRAG (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group) recently approved the new ESRS, which will be the sustainability reporting standard, consistent with the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which introduced new rules for companies required to report on sustainability, which they will have to progressively adopt over the next few years, according to the deadlines set for different categories of companies: starting with large companies from 2024.

In parallel, at the international level, the IFRS, an organization that has so far been in charge of international accounting standards, has merged with ISSB (International Sustainability Standard Boards) to develop standards outside Europe to draw up a standard for sustainability reports. Ultimately, the long-term goal is for companies to no longer produce two separate financial statements, but one integrated one that will follow European or international IFRS accounting standards, so that it is compliant with everything on both the economic and sustainability sides.

Perrini was nominated by the President of the Ordine Nazionale dei Dottori Commercialisti because, at the end of this journey, financial report and the sustainability report will be part of a single integrated report, prepared and presented by professional chartered accountants.

The idea of Accountancy Europe is to arrive at an inter-readable standard that is compatible with both European and international standards or rather to have a single standard.