The UK government announced the release of the finalized UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS), based on the sustainability and climate-related standards developed by the IFRS Foundation, aimed at enabling companies to provide consistent and standardized reporting on sustainability and climate-related financial information, risks and opportunities, aligned with international frameworks.

While the government endorsed the standards for voluntary use, it left the door open for future mandatory application of the climate and sustainability disclosure frameworks, noting that markets regulator the FCA is already consulting on implementing requirements for listed companies to include UK SRS-based disclosures in their reporting, and that the government “will consider whether to require private companies to report information in accordance with UK SRS” as part of a broader upcoming consultation on updating corporate reporting requirements.

The new publications include the finalized versions of “UK SRS S1” and “UK SRS S2,” which correspond to the IFRS Foundation’s International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB) IFRS S1 (sustainability-related) and IFRS S2 (climate-related) standards.

While the UK’s standards align closely with those of the IFRS’ ISSB, exposure drafts of the standards released by the UK in June 2025 proposed several amendments, based on recommendations made by the UK Sustainability Disclosure Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).

One of the key changes included in the finalized UK SRS was the removal of time references for reliefs on requirements to report Scope 3 value chain emissions data. While IFRS S2 includes a one-year transitional relief during which companies are not required to report Scope 3 emissions — a provision that was included in the UK’s June 2025 draft standards — the finalized UK standard no longer specifies how long the relief may be applied. This effectively leaves the determination of the timeframe for the Scope 3 relief to legislation or regulators mandating use of the standard in the future, while companies reporting on a voluntary basis may assert compliance with UK SRS S2 without reporting Scope 3 emissions indefinitely, provided they disclose their use of the relief.

Similarly, while the IFRS standards include a 1-year “climate-first” relief to give companies extra time to provide disclosure on some sustainability-related risks, in order to enable them to first focus on climate-related reporting, which had been extended to 2 years in the UK’s June 2025 draft standards, the finalized UK SRS removes the time references to this relief as well.

Notably, the FCA’s ongoing consultation addresses each of these reliefs, proposing a one-year transition relief during which companies would not be required to report Scope 3 data, after which the requirement would be on a “comply or explain” basis, and a 2-year transitional relief for UK SRS S1, with implementation on a “comply or explain” basis after year 2.

Regarding the mandatory application of the new standards, the government said that it “plans to consult shortly on a programme of work to modernise the UK’s corporate reporting requirements,” and that under that consultation, it “will consider whether to require private companies to report information in accordance with UK SRS as part of that exercise.”

Alongside the UK SRS consultation in June, the government also launched a consultation on implementing transition plan requirements for companies. In its UK SRS consultation response, the government said that it will “provide a summary of feedback received in due course” on the transition plan consultation.

Click here to access the UK’s finalized sustainability and climate reporting standards.