Imagine that you are upper management at a large corporation, and you’re told that you need to start comprehensively disclosing your outfit’s CO2 emissions in your financial reports. Sounds like an unbelievable hassle, no? Especially since there’s no legal mandate to do so.
And yet hundreds of companies are doing just that. Why? I offer an answer in my latest column at Fast Company: "Carbon Copy."
In related news that has emerged since I wrote the column, Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd recently wrote the SEC requesting that it “issue guidance on climate disclosure requirements.”
Also, last Tuesday, a coalition of investors including the chief investment officer from CalPERS met with SEC staff to discuss a petition (discussed in my column) asking SEC to issue such guidelines. No firm decisions were made.
Momentum is really building in this area. Before too long, disclosure of climate risks will be a standard part of corporate reporting, and as a consequence the risk profiles of some business sectors will shift substantially, and investors will take note. Fun.
* Warning: not actually titillating.
