Groundwork needed as Switzerland advances toward digital climate disclosures
The Swiss government is now consulting on a proposal to introduce mandatory climate disclosures. A comment letter from XBRL Switzerland seeks to clarify certain aspects of this Ordinance on Climate Reporting and to encourage a truly digital approach. As it observes, the ordinance requires the use of a format that is both human- and machine-readable but offers PDF or XBRL as examples, although PDF is not a machine-readable digital format – “this cannot be what the legislator had in mind.” XBRL should therefore be required as the most appropriate format to allow “reported information to be analysed in downstream processes in an … automated way.” In particular, Inline XBRL – already in use across the EU for financial data, with sustainability disclosures to follow – combines human- and machine-readability in a single document and avoids erroneous differences where two report versions are filed.
XBRL Switzerland also addresses the need for development of an appropriate taxonomy, and its own commitment to the process: “we consider it our core task to serve as a platform for the development of national XBRL taxonomies or possible national extensions of international taxonomies such as those of the ISSB.”
