Sustainability reporting
Sustainability and ESG services in Dubai, for the report your bank or your buyer is asking for.
Banks, large buyers and listed parents ask UAE companies for a sustainability report and for their greenhouse gas numbers. We prepare the report to GRI or IFRS S1 and S2, measure the emissions, and train the people who will own it. The work is led by a GRI Certified Sustainability Professional.
Who is asking
The request rarely comes from a regulator. It comes from a customer or a lender.
No UAE law yet requires a private company to publish a full sustainability report. Federal Decree-Law 11 of 2024 on climate change, in force since 30 May 2025, does require every company to measure and report its greenhouse gas emissions, and that inventory is the core of an IFRS S2 report. Beyond the law, the pressure comes from the people you already answer to. A bank reviewing a facility asks for your emissions and governance for its own reporting. A large buyer, a government contractor or a multinational, sends a supplier questionnaire and makes the next contract depend on it. A listed parent has to report on its group and needs numbers from every subsidiary. And some free zones run ESG programs that ask members for a report.
Each asks increasingly often, and in a slightly different format. The way to stop answering the same questions four times is one report to a recognized standard.
A first report does not need to be long. It needs to be true, to say what it leaves out, and to rest on numbers that trace back to a bill, a meter or a payroll.
What a first report needs
Seven things, gathered before a word is written.
- A boundary. Which companies, sites and activities the report covers, and which it does not.
- A materiality list. The five to ten topics that matter to your business and to the people asking.
- Energy and fuel data. Twelve months of electricity bills, fuel receipts and vehicle records.
- People data. Headcount, nationality mix, gender split, training hours, health and safety incidents, from HR and payroll.
- Governance. Who is responsible for sustainability at board and management level, and what policies exist in writing.
- Targets, or an honest statement that there are none yet. A first report may set a baseline. It must not invent a commitment.
- A trail. Every number in the report linked to the document it came from, so that assurance is possible later.
IFRS S1 and S2
The two ISSB standards, in plain English.
IFRS S1 and S2 come from the International Sustainability Standards Board, sister to the body that writes the accounting standards your financial statements follow. UAE listed companies already publish sustainability reports under the securities regulator's governance code, and the exchanges point them to IFRS S1 and S2. Private companies meet them when a bank or a listed parent passes the requirement down. They sit next to the financial statements, same period, same boundary.
| Standard | Covers | What it asks you to disclose |
|---|---|---|
| IFRS S1 | General sustainability-related risks and opportunities | Governance on sustainability, the strategy and the risks that could affect cash flows, how those risks are managed, and the metrics and targets used to track them. |
| IFRS S2 | Climate, specifically | The same four headings applied to climate. Greenhouse gas emissions by scope, exposure to physical risks such as heat and water and to transition risks such as carbon pricing, and how the plan changes under different scenarios. |
For most UAE private companies the first year is S2 in substance, the emissions inventory, with S1's governance and strategy sections kept short and honest.
GRI
When a buyer sends a questionnaire, GRI is the language it is written in.
The GRI Standards are the common framework for a first report, and the one most supplier questionnaires are built on. Where IFRS S1 and S2 ask what affects your cash flows, GRI asks what your business does to the world around it: emissions, water, waste, labor practices, health and safety, anti-corruption, local hiring.
A GRI report starts with a materiality assessment, a short list of the topics that matter, then a disclosure for each from the numbered GRI standard that covers it. It says at the top which standards were used and which disclosures were left out and why. A buyer's procurement team can read it against their own list in an afternoon.
There is a GRI Certified Sustainability Professional on the team, so the materiality work and the disclosures are done by someone trained on the standards, not adapted from a template.
If your own staff will write the report, we run the GRI Standards certified training with the DCarbon group, a GRI certified training partner, and a short ESG course for the executives who will approve it. See Advisory.
Independent assurance
We prepare the report. Somebody independent signs off on it.
Some banks and buyers want the report tested by someone independent before they accept it. That is assurance, carried out under ISAE 3000, the international standard for assurance on anything other than financial statements. Limited assurance is where most companies start: enough work to say that nothing came to light suggesting the report is materially wrong.
The firm that writes a report should not be the firm that assures it. Testing your own work is a self review, and a reader who knows that cannot rely on the opinion. So we do one job, not both.
What we do is prepare the report and the evidence behind it so that it is ready to be assured: every figure traced back to a bill, a meter or a payroll record, in the form an assurance provider will ask for. Where assurance is required we coordinate with an independent provider of your choice, and the separation is visible to whoever reads the result.
Timeline
A first report in 8 to 12 weeks.
The pace is set by how fast the data arrives. The bills, payroll and HR records exist already. The work is gathering them once, in a form that can be reported and tested every year after.
If your bank also wants independent assurance, say so in week 1. We build the evidence file to suit it and introduce an independent assurance provider, so the timetable allows for their work rather than discovering it at the end.
- Week 1Scope and boundaryWhich standard, which entities, which year. Engagement letter signed
- Weeks 2 to 3MaterialityInterviews with management, a short list of topics, agreed in writing
- Weeks 3 to 6Data gatheringBills, fuel, vehicles, payroll, HR, policies. The emissions inventory built
- Weeks 7 to 8Draft reportWritten to the standard, reviewed with you, gaps stated openly
- Weeks 9 to 10Evidence fileEvery figure traced to a bill, a meter or a payroll record, ready for an assurance provider
- Weeks 11 to 12Final reportReady for the bank, the buyer or the parent company. Independent assurance arranged separately if it is required
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