The Paris Agreement, often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on climate change. Adopted in 2015, the agreement covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France. As of September 2022, 194 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. The United States withdrew from the Agreement in 2020, but rejoined in 2021.

The Sustainable Development Goals or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future". The SDGs were set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and are intended to be achieved by 2030.

On 5 January 2023 the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) entered into force in Europe. This new directive modernizes and strengthens the rules about the social and environmental information that companies have to report. A broader set of large companies, as well as listed SMEs, will now be required to report on sustainability – approximately 50,000 companies in total. The new rules will ensure that investors and other stakeholders have access to the information they need to assess investment risks arising from climate change and other sustainability issues. They will also create a culture of transparency about the impact of companies on people and the environment. Finally, reporting costs will be reduced for companies over the medium to long term by harmonizing the information to be provided. Companies subject to the CSRD will have to report according to European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).

The SEC Climate Risk Disclosure is proposed mandatory reporting in the United States which will require publically traded companies to report their GHG emissions in line with categories of scopes 1-3. Many privately held companies will be held accountable for reporting of their GHG emissions in order for public companies to comply with scope 3 requirements.

An independent, international organization that helps businesses and other organizations take responsibility for their impacts, by providing them with the global common language to communicate those impacts. GRI is the world's most widely used standard for sustainability reporting.

"The UN Global Compact supports companies to do business responsibly by aligning their strategies and operations with Ten Principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption; and take strategic actions to advance broader societal goals, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with an emphasis on collaboration and innovation."

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) created the TCFD to develop recommendations on the types of information that companies should disclose to support investors, lenders, and insurance underwriters in appropriately assessing and pricing a specific set of risks—risks related to climate change.

The IFRS Foundation is a not-for-profit, public interest organization established to develop high-quality, understandable, enforceable and globally accepted accounting and sustainability disclosure standards and to promote and facilitate adoption of the standards. The Standards are developed by our two standard-setting boards, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the newly created International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

The intention is for the ISSB to deliver a comprehensive global baseline of sustainability-related disclosure standards that provide investors and other capital market participants with information about companies’ sustainability-related risks and opportunities to help them make informed decisions.

SASB Standards guide the disclosure of financially material sustainability information by companies to their investors. Available for 77 industries, the Standards identify the subset of environmental, social, and governance issues most relevant to financial performance in each industry. As of August 2022, SASB is under ISSB oversight.

GHG Protocol establishes comprehensive global standardized frameworks to measure and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private and public sector operations, value chains and mitigation actions. Building on a 20-year partnership between World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), GHG Protocol works with governments, industry associations, NGOs, businesses and other organizations. They offer online training on their standards and tools, as well as the “Built on GHG Protocol” review service, which recognizes sector guidance, product rules and tools that are in conformance with GHG Protocol standards.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) drives ambitious climate action in the private sector by enabling organizations to set science-based emissions reduction targets. Shows companies and financial institutions how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

CDP runs the global environmental disclosure system. Each year CDP supports thousands of companies, cities, states and regions to measure and manage their risks and opportunities on climate change, water security and deforestation. This is done at the request of their investors, purchasers and city stakeholders. Each year, CDP takes the information supplied in its annual reporting process and scores companies and cities based on their journey through disclosure and towards environmental leadership. Through the independent scoring methodology, they measure corporate and city progress and incentivize action on climate change, forests and water security.

S&P Global Sustainable1 matches customers with the sustainability products, insights and solutions from across S&P Global’s divisions to help meet their unique needs. The comprehensive coverage across global markets combined with in-depth sustainability intelligence provides financial institutions, corporations and governments with expansive insight on business risk, opportunity, and impact as we work towards a sustainable future.

The EcoVadis sustainability assessment methodology is at the heart of our Ratings and Scorecards and is an evaluation of how well a company has integrated the principles of Sustainability/CSR into their business and management system. The assessment covers 4 key topics: Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement. Since its founding in 2007, EcoVadis has grown to become the world’s largest and most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings, creating a global network of more than 100,000+ rated companies.