In a bid to enhance transparency and accountability, the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) in collaboration with its partners has launched the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), to serve as guiding manual for both prospective and listed companies on the local burse.

The manual will enable listed Firms, collect, analyse, and publicly disclose important ESG information using an approach that meets international standards in sustainability reporting.

Speaking to Joy Business at the launch of the manual, outgoing Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange, Ekow Afedzi, said that listed companies will from next year be required to publish the Environment, Social and Governance document alongside their financials.

“This manual will actually guide companies when it comes to reporting along the ESG guidelines. And the ESG is about Environmental Social and other issues associated. All we are saying is that, once the regulator approved this guidelines, we do some training then after that we introduce this requirement into our listing obligations for listed companies”.

“In other words, listed companies will now have to report some other things than financials. So next year, we make sure that as we review our listing rules we include some of these requirements”.

On her part, Deputy Director-General Legal at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Deborah Mawuse Agyemfra, stated that these guidelines have been integrated into Capital Market Master Plan for the next 10 years to promote sustainability and transparency.

“A sustainable finance becomes more mainstream as a common thread among all companies strategies. A sustainable finance is very important in the operations of companies and everything they do”.

“The launch of the ESG guideline manual is crucial in providing a principle base guide on how to progressively integrate ESG into the strategy of these companies. We as a Regulator under our mandate in Securities Industry act, we want things to be transparent and fair”.