Over the years the IMA has championed the use of XBRL as a machine-readable data format for financial reporting to promote greater transparency and accountability to support economic growth and new jobs in the capital markets. ESMA states in its disclosed press release that it has concluded that Inline XBRL is the most suitable technology to meet the EU requirement for issuers to report their annual financial reports in a single electronic format because it enables both machine and human readability in one document. The digital format will allow users such as investors, analysts and auditors to carry out software supported analysis and comparison of large amounts of financial information. Access to annual financial reports for both professional and retail investors is essential for creating robust capital markets across the EU. Will the US Securities and Exchange Commission follow suit and move towards mandating Inline XBRL for public company financial reporting? As reported in FCW -- One of the final rules that could make it through before the end of US SEC Chair White's tenure at the US securities regulator is a proposal to require the use of inline XBRL in the submission of financial data for US public company disclosures
Likewise, companies have increased their commitments to ESG: Ceres research shows that among that 600 largest public companies, “nearly two-thirds have commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (gHg) emissions, half are actively managing water resources and nearly half are now actively protecting the human rights of their employees by disclosing human capital data in its financial statement reports as well
Use of XBRL for Sustainability Disclosures to Match Financial Data Disclosures to Support Machine-Readable Data Formats for Better Transparency and Accountability: XBRL is a global standard developed to enhance transparency and accountability and this same standard can be used for other non-financial disclosures like ESG reporting
Great article from the European Securities Market Authority on what EU public companies must do using the new Inline XBRL Global Data Standard for Better Transparency & Accountability by putting financial and non-financial financial statement info in a machine-readable format