Investors: Companies must disclose how much climate change impacts financial performance

The Copenhagen climate conference starts in December.
AP Photo/Thierry Charlier

Although the public debate on whether humans are changing the world’s climate or not is still going strong, most U.S politicians and business leaders have laid the question to rest and Monday a coalition of institutional investors submitted a petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asking for interpretive guidance outlining climate-related ‘material risks’. The reason? Investors feel it is impossible to adequately assess the risk to their money if companies don’t tell how much climate change and its impact might affect their financial performance.

It is recent regulatory and legislative developments, like the EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting rule and the climate bill that have investors worried.

“Current SEC regulation requires companies to disclose material risks like climate change, but many companies haven’t examined these risks”, said CalPERS CEO Anne Stausboll, who heads the nation’s largest public pension fund with close to $200 billion under management. “The SEC should strengthen and enforce its current requirements so investor’s decisions fully accounts for climate change’s financial effects”.