The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) has launched a revised and updated Sustainability Disclosure Guidance Manual, with a call on businesses to make sustainability a key part of their strategies for profitability, resilience and environmental protection.
The manual was developed with support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
It was first developed in 2022 to guide businesses in identifying and reporting environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks that could affect their operations, stakeholders and the environment.
Speaking at the launch in Accra yesterday, the Managing Director of the GSE, Ms Abena Amoah, said the sustainability reporting landscape had changed significantly since the first edition, particularly with Ghana’s phased adoption of the IFRS S1 and S2 sustainability disclosure standards.
She said under a roadmap issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG), listed companies and other significant public interest entities would be required to apply the standards for reporting periods beginning in January 2027.
Ms Amoah also noted that the Bank of Ghana’s Climate-Related Financial Risk Directive had taken effect for banks this year, making it necessary for companies to strengthen their governance, data collection and reporting systems.
She said the updated manual was intended to help companies comply with the new requirements without treating sustainability reporting as a mere administrative exercise.
“The updated manual is intended to make that process easier, not just another compliance tick box,” Ms Amoah said. “It provides practical guidance to help companies identify their material sustainability impacts, risks and opportunities, and connect sustainability more closely with strategy, governance and financial reporting.”
Ms Amoah said improved standards were already contributing to renewed activity on the local capital market.
She noted that after seven years without an Initial Public Offering (IPO), First Atlantic Bank PLC listed in December 2025, followed by Zen Petroleum and Casapreko PLC, which raised capital through the market.
She said the GSE equities index had risen by 73 per cent year-to-date as of Tuesday, while volumes and values traded had doubled compared with the same period last year.
“Last year, the average trades executed in a month was about 25,000. This year, we are seeing 300,000 trades executed per month. The market has shifted,” she said.
Ms Amoah urged listed companies, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), investors and other stakeholders to begin using the updated manual ahead of the mandatory reporting requirements from 2027.
The Acting Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr James Kludze Avedzi, said sustainability disclosure was fundamentally about accountability.
“Sustainability disclosure is how you tell the truth about your impacts on the planet, on people and on the systems you operate within,” he said.
He urged businesses to use the manual as a practical tool for accurate and honest reporting, stressing that transparency had become a competitive advantage.
“Transparency is not a weakness. In today’s environment, it is a competitive strength,” Dr Avedzi said.
He added that organisations that disclosed information openly and accurately were better positioned to attract investment, partnerships and public trust.
The Deputy Head of Economic Cooperation and Development at the Swiss Embassy, Ms Magdalene Wust, said transparent and comparable sustainability reporting was a competitiveness tool rather than a compliance burden.
She said Switzerland’s support reflected its commitment to building a resilient Ghanaian economy with a strong private sector and environmental integrity.
The Director of GRI Africa, Mr Douglas Kativu, urged companies to consider both financial and impact materiality in their reporting.
He explained that ignoring the impact businesses had on people, the environment and the economy did not make those impacts disappear.
“When impact materiality is overlooked, the impacts are not avoided, but deferred, and deferred impacts often return with reputational, financial as well as legal costs,” Mr Kativu said.
He said GRI and IFRS were increasingly working together to build a corporate reporting landscape that recognised the complementary nature of financial and impact materiality.
Mr Kativu said research had also shown significant alignment between Ghana’s regulatory requirements for SMEs and GRI standards, with about 96 per cent of the requirements reviewed showing full or partial alignment.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
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