The Sustainability Professionals Institute of Nigeria (SPIN) has urged the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC) to restrict its mandate to regulating sustainability reporting rather than positioning itself as the authority on sustainability practice.

The institute made the call while reaffirming its support for Nigeria’s adoption of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) Sustainability Disclosure Standards, IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, warning against attempts to equate the reporting standards with the broader concept of sustainability.

According to SPIN, sustainability is a multidisciplinary field that extends beyond corporate disclosures to include governance, environmental stewardship, climate resilience, biodiversity, human rights, labour practices, stakeholder engagement, responsible investment, the circular economy, community development and long-term value creation.
It stressed that sustainability reporting is only the outcome of effective sustainability management, not the practice itself.

“Reporting is the final expression of sustainability performance. Organisations cannot credibly disclose what they have not first governed, measured, managed and improved. As Nigeria moves toward mandatory disclosure, our objective must be better sustainability performance, not merely better reports,” the institute said.

SPIN noted that while IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 provide a globally recognised framework for sustainability-related financial disclosures focused on investors and financial materiality, they represent only one element of the wider global sustainability ecosystem.

The institute identified other internationally recognised frameworks, including the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, the Global Reporting Initiative, the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the UN Global Compact and various scientific protocols, as equally important for organisations seeking to manage their environmental and social impacts.

It also cautioned against portraying sustainability as primarily an accounting function or suggesting that expertise in IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 alone constitutes competence in sustainability practice.

While acknowledging the FRC’s statutory responsibility in regulating corporate reporting, the institute argued that the council’s role should not extend to defining sustainability as an academic discipline, professional practice or national development agenda.

It further warned regulators against engaging in implementation, commercial capacity-building or activities that could place them in direct competition with the professionals and organisations they regulate.

SPIN said building a credible sustainability ecosystem requires collaboration among regulators, academia, professional institutes, businesses, civil society organisations, development partners and practitioners from diverse disciplines.

The institute warned that reducing sustainability education to an investor-focused disclosure framework could undermine Nigeria’s capacity to address climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality and responsible business conduct.