The head of Bank of America Brian Moynihan was the first who talked about the need for unification. As head of the International Business Council (IBC) at the World Economic Forum, he proposed to start developing common ESG standards in 2019. The Big Four – Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG – were involved in the work. In September 2020, the White Paper on uniform metrics was presented.  FOLLOW THE LINK
The unified metrics are designed to provide a universal and comparable set of ESG disclosure metrics that any company can report on, regardless of industry or region. The project has two goals: "To accelerate convergence among leading private developers of ESG standards, and to ensure greater comparability and consistency in ESG disclosure reporting."
After the publication of the White Paper, the WEF proposed the following steps for approving and distributing metrics:
1) Creating a coalition: to call first on the companies that are members of the International Business Council to switch (within a reasonable time) to the unified ESG metrics, and then on other members of the WEF.
2) Recognition of unified reporting: create communities of ESG specialists to implement unified ESG reporting, share best practices, and identify problems.
3) System solution: Continue efforts to bring standard-setters closer together and establish a global standard for non-financial reporting.
4) Ecosystem Management: Working with other key ecosystem actors to harmonize reporting on ESG metrics (standard developers, regulators, stock exchanges, data providers, UN initiatives, etc.).
On January 26, 2021, Bank of America, KPMG, Mastercard, Salesforce, Unilever, Dell, Sony, and about 60 other leading companies announced their transition to standardized ESG metrics developed by WEF in collaboration with Big4.
On 2 February 2021, the trustees of the IFRS Foundation announced that they had reviewed the responses to their consultation paper on sustainability reporting (published in September 2020). The next step is the formation of a Steering Committee of Trustees to oversee the next phase of work, based on what the review states: "the growing and urgent demand for improved global consistency and comparability of sustainability reporting, as well as the strong recognition of the need for urgent action and the widespread demand for the IASF to play a role in this."
It is expected that by the end of September 2021, the trustees will have prepared a final proposal (including a roadmap with a timetable) and that this may be followed by the announcement of the establishment of the Sustainability Standards Board (which will meet in parallel with the International Accounting Standards Board) at the COP-26 summit in November 2021.
March 29, 2021 The WEF has sent a letter to its members calling for support for the Global ESG Reporting Standards. The letter notes the events of the past few months, starting with the publication of the WEF White Paper, then cites the IASB Foundation's consultations on the creation of the Global Sustainability Standards Board and the statement of intent of the CDP, CDSB, GRI, IIRC and SASB to work together to create a comprehensive corporate reporting system.
The letter says that the same global standardization and coordination that already exists for financial reporting is required for ESG reporting, so that companies of any industry or country are comparable and can be held accountable to investors. In the letter, the WEF specifies three steps to achieve this:
1. An independent global developer of generally accepted ESG reporting standards. In this regard, WEF supports the initiative of the IASF, believing that the new organization, working under its wing in parallel with the IASB, will perfectly cope with this task.
2. The actual use of the new standards by participants in the global capital markets requires control over their use by local regulators. In other words, they should become mandatory, not voluntary. In the letter, WEF refers to the support of the International Organization of Securities Market Regulators (IOSCO) for the IFRS Foundation's initiative and its proposed approach to development based on “building blocks”.
3. For the IFRS Foundation's standard-setting process to be most successful, it should build on the core reporting initiatives already in place. The letter points to the work of the CDP, CDSB, GRI, IIRC and SASB and notes that the work of the WEF has included helping to facilitate collaboration between the five organizations and that the WEF looks forward to working even more closely with them to support the establishment of sustainable development reporting standards through the SSB.
The WEF, which is also a member of the recently announced IASF Sustainability Working Group, concludes its letter with the following words:
So, these are the steps we need to follow to move on to the system change of ESG metrics. We support this process and the organizations that are working to achieve it. In particular, we count on the support of the IASB's Sustainability Standards Board. We will promote opportunities for high-level dialogue between the public and private sectors to strengthen the strategic alignment of these goals, and we will mobilize corporate support at the executive level in the global business community. We also encourage capital market regulators to work with the IASB and IOSCO to support the Sustainability Standards Board.