Chapter 03 · Reporting & strategyReporting, Disclosure & Frameworks
CDSB (Climate Disclosure Standards Board)
Definition
An international consortium of business and environmental NGOs, founded in 2007, that developed the CDSB Framework for reporting environmental and climate-change information with the same rigour as financial reporting. The CDSB Framework formed a key basis for the TCFD recommendations. In 2022 CDSB was consolidated into the IFRS Foundation to support the new International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).
References
Consortium identity; CDSB Framework as basis for TCFD; 31 January 2022 consolidation into IFRS Foundation; closure of technical work.
Overview
What it means
CDSB is historically important as the bridge between environmental reporting and mainstream financial filings: its Framework required climate information in the annual report, not a separate sustainability report, and its conceptual architecture (relevance, faithful representation, connectivity) fed directly into TCFD and then ISSB.
Following the January 2022 consolidation, CDSB ceased independent technical work; its guidance remains available and usable until the ISSB issues equivalent topic standards — ISSB's IFRS S1 and S2, issued June 2023, now carry the torch.
How it is used
Preparers historically used the CDSB Framework for CDP responses and mainstream-report climate disclosure; today it is mostly cited as intellectual lineage in ISSB/TCFD implementation and in research on disclosure-framework convergence (alongside SASB, also absorbed into the IFRS Foundation).
Why it matters
CDSB's absorption marks the consolidation era of sustainability disclosure — the moment fragmented voluntary frameworks folded into a single global baseline.