In February 2026, the government published the final UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, known as UK SRS. For years, businesses have worked with a patchwork of standards, but UK SRS brings that patchwork together into a coherent list of requirements.
If your business hasn’t started thinking about this yet, now is the time.
If your business hasn’t started thinking about this yet, now is the time. Listed companies could face mandatory climate reporting from January 2027, and reporting standards are shifting from optional to expected, fast. Suppliers to listed companies are already feeling this too. Getting ahead of it beats scrambling later.
Here’s what’s changed, what’s still to come, and what you can do about it.
What is UK SRS?
UK SRS, published in February 2026, is a formal corporate reporting standard aligned with the global baseline set by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Put simply, ISSB is the global baseline, and UK SRS is how the UK has adopted it.
It governs how businesses disclose climate and sustainability-related financial risks and opportunities.
- UK SRS 1. Covers general requirements for disclosing sustainability-related financial information.
- UK SRS 2. Covers climate-related disclosures specifically.
- Together. They set out how a business should report the sustainability risks and opportunities that affect its financial performance.
UK SRS uses a financial materiality lens; you report what could affect your cash flow, your access to finance, or your cost of capital. This is different from the EU’s approach under CSRD, which asks businesses to report on both financial impact and wider societal impact.
Where things stand right now
UK SRS is currently available for voluntary use. Nobody has to report against it yet, but the direction of travel is clear.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is already consulting on making UK SRS S2 mandatory for listed companies. If it goes ahead as proposed, mandatory climate reporting would apply to listed companies from January 2027.
Scope 3 emissions and the wider, non-climate parts of UK SRS S1 are expected to follow a comply-or-explain approach. This gives businesses some room to phase in the more complex reporting requirements rather than facing everything at once.
SECR stays in place too. It’s a separate reporting route sitting alongside UK SRS, not one UK SRS is replacing. TCFD is a different story: it was disbanded in 2023 and folded into the ISSB, which is why UK SRS S2 is now set to replace the FCA’s TCFD-aligned listing rules.
The government has also said it plans to consult later in 2026 on extending mandatory UK SRS reporting to large private companies. If your business isn’t listed, this is still worth watching closely.
Who needs to act now?
Listed companies are the first in scope, but the wider signal is just as important for everyone else.
If you’re a large private company, a supplier to a listed business, or simply planning, UK SRS gives you clear requirements to start working towards.
What businesses should do now
You don’t need to wait for the final FCA rules to start preparing.
Run a financial materiality assessment Before you can report against UK SRS, you need to identify which sustainability risks and opportunities actually affect your cash flow, financing, or cost of capital. This shapes everything else, so it’s worth getting right before you move on to data and disclosures.
Start with a gap analysis and compare what you currently report against what UK SRS S1 and S2 actually ask for.
Look closely at your data Climate reporting under UK SRS needs solid data on emissions across your operations, and increasingly your supply chain too. If your data collection is patchy, this is the moment to fix it.
Get your governance in order UK SRS expects businesses to show how sustainability risk is managed at a governance level, not just reported after the fact.
Think about assurance. The FCA hasn’t mandated third-party assurance yet, but it does expect companies to state whether they’ve obtained it. Getting ahead of this now puts you in a stronger position later.
The bigger picture assured?
UK SRS is a shift towards clearer, more comparable sustainability reporting, one that puts businesses in a stronger position with investors, lenders, and customers who are already asking these questions.
The businesses that start preparing now, rather than waiting for the FCA’s final rules in 2027, will find the transition far less disruptive when mandatory reporting does arrive.
If you want help figuring out where you stand against UK SRS, or what a practical first step looks like for your business, get in touch.
We’re already helping clients work through exactly this, get in touch here.