By Ross Kerber
(Reuters) – Wall Street’s top regulatory body was meeting on Wednesday to vote on rules that would force public companies to disclose certain climate-related risks, in first-of-its-kind regulation that was watered down after an earlier draft sparked two years of debate.
STORY:
COMMENTS:
BEN JEALOUS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SIERRA CLUB:
“Thanks to the SEC’s actions, companies will finally be required to provide reliable and comparable information to investors and the market about some of their climate-related financial risks. While a positive step, this rule falls significantly short of what’s needed. Greenhouse gas emissions are a critical measure of a company’s handling of climate risk and Scope 3 emissions represent the vast majority of emissions from most companies.”
HANA VIZCARRA, SENIOR ATTORNEY, EARTHJUSTICE
“The SEC took an important and long overdue step to protect investors, the integrity of our markets, and the retirements of everyday Americans. Climate change threatens every facet of the U.S. economy, so the SEC is well within its authority and obligation to require more reliable information for investors. But the SEC is condoning misleading and incomplete disclosures that open investors to risk by dropping the Scope 3 emissions disclosure requirements. Investors deserve better than where the SEC landed with its disclosure rule.”
STEVE SOTER, VICE PRESIDENT, WORKIVA
“These new requirements will likely cause drastic changes to existing disclosure and audit processes. This is especially true for U.S. public companies who have not already begun integrating their sustainability and financial reporting or auditing their sustainability disclosures. Notably, these new rules, softened from the original proposal, set a relatively low bar in comparison to other widely accepted climate disclosure requirements.”
BILL HARTER, ADVISOR, VISUAL LEASE
“Although the commission did not discuss much detail about the use of offsets and/or renewable energy credits, the disclosure is potentially significant. If California’s AB 1305 is indicative of the rule content, a company will need to know its greenhouse gas emissions in order to report on the value of the offsets. The fact that only large, accelerated filers need to include greenhouse gas emissions to filings if they are material does not in fact relieve companies from tracking their emissions.”
(Reporting by Ross Kerber)
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