Sunday, June 3, 2012

Disclosure of Climate Risk

Companies need to disclose climate risk: investors
May 31, 2012 - Institutional investors and environmental advocates on Thursday urged companies to disclose their risks from the impact of climate change, two years after the Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines for firms to do just that.

While the SEC guidelines do not force publicly traded corporations to assess such climate-related events as severe storms, droughts, floods and heat waves, some companies have done so anyway.

But those disclosures have not been particularly useful, according to Maryland State Treasurer Nancy Kopp.

"Among those who disclosed, they used different procedures, different rubrics, different metrics," Kopp said in a telephone interview. "So the idea of having some basis for comparing companies consistently is an important thing to us, to investors. Otherwise you get a hodgepodge of data that's not useful information."

Kopp, who chairs the $36 billion Maryland State Employees and Teachers Pension Fund, was among those backing a new guide for corporations on how to disclose climate change risk, released one day before the official June 1 beginning of the hurricane season. read more>>>


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