Towards a More Sustainable Future: Advancing the Centrality of Ethics

The IESBA's Strategy and Work Plan (SWP), 2024 - 2027 sets out the IESBA's vision and strategic goals and actions, underpinning its ambition to put the Code at the heart of business and organizations. The SWP has identified two high-priority strategic areas of focus, namely:

• Accounting firm culture and governance, seeking to identify potential actions the IESBA might take within or outside the Code to respond to the persistent high-profile cases of unethical behavior in accounting firms.
• Exploring the opportunity to extend the impact of the Code beyond the accountancy profession to a wider array of individuals who perform similar work as professional accountants, building on its current project to develop profession-agnostic ethics, including independence, standards for all sustainability assurance practitioners. Among other matters, this will include a new workstream to explore expanding the scope and applicability of the Code beyond professional accountants to all preparers of sustainability information.

Other key highlights of the SWP include:

• New initiatives to explore ethical considerations relating to the evolving role of CFOs and other senior professional accountants in business, and independence considerations relating to business relationships between firms and their audit clients.
• A commitment to conduct a series of post-implementation reviews for significant ethics, including independence, standards the IESBA issued in recent years.
• Ongoing monitoring of the rapidly changing landscape of technological transformations and their impact on the professional activities and services performed by professional accountants and others, with a view to determining the need for any further standard-setting or other actions the IESBA might take in the public interest.

A commitment to close coordination with the IESBA’s sister Board, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), and to fostering collaborative