Resource Database

Smart water management is a business imperative, especially as the impacts of climate change, water scarcity and pollution accelerate globally. Ceres released the fourth iteration of their biannual report, Feeding Ourselves Thirsty, which ranks 38 of the largest food & beverage companies on how effectively they respond to water risks.

The website report includes company scorecards and industry performance pages, in addition to analysis about key trends, regional analyses, and the downloadable Executive Summary.

This article, written by Marta Modelewska and Dan Storey, explores how and where gaps in climate disclosure will hit corporate access to capital.

Two major projections for the trajectory of global energy use, which assume that temperature increases are stabilized at 1.5 degrees Celsius, make vastly different estimates about future energy consumption.

This report provides an overview of contemporary evidence that climate change and the transition to a net-zero emissions economy presents foreseeable, material, and systemic financial risks that will affect corporations. It considers that evidence in the context of directors’ and officers’ fiduciary duties under Delaware law, particularly in light of recent case law on the duty of oversight. In so doing, it sets out the practical circumstances in which a failure by directors or officers to have adequate regard to climate change-related issues could fail to satisfy the standard of conduct required to fulfil their duties and lead to potential litigation and liability exposures.

This report provides an overview of contemporary evidence that climate change and the transition to a net-zero emissions economy presents foreseeable, material, and systemic financial risks that will affect corporations. It considers that evidence in the context of directors’ and officers’ fiduciary duties under Delaware law, particularly in light of recent case law on the duty of oversight. In so doing, it sets out the practical circumstances in which a failure by directors or officers to have adequate regard to climate change-related issues could fail to satisfy the standard of conduct required to fulfil their duties and lead to potential litigation and liability exposures.

Investors, regulators, and policymakers are increasingly recognising that physical climate risks can have financial impacts for investment portfolios. If these present material risks, investors need to take them into account to meet their fiduciary duty. By taking action on physical climate risks and opportunities, investors can help build the climate resilience of both individual companies and their portfolio more broadly, as well as helping to channel investment towards adaptation solutions. In turn, this can help to build the climate resilience of wider society to a changing and more variable climate.

This set of investor expectations of investee companies builds on guidance produced by IIGCC members  that sets out how investors can integrate the risks and opportunities presented by the physical impacts of a climate change into their investment processes. The report recommends that a first step investors should take to manage physical risk in portfolios is to conduct engagement with investee companies. This can improve the availability of physical climate-related data and information for investors and ensure that actions are taken by investees to address risks and build climate resilience.

Since the release of the first GARP Risk Institute (GRI) climate risk survey in 2019, the financial risks of climate change have only intensified.

Positively, the 2021 report reveals that boards are stepping up their oversight and engagement. Ninety-two per cent of surveyed firms report board oversight of climate risk, with C-suite level executives accountable for climate-risk assessments and management efforts at over 90% firms.

Read more about the state of climate risk management, with results from 78 of the top financial firms around the world, with GRI’s new report.

The Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) has commissioned a legal opinion on directors’ duties and disclosure obligations regarding climate change.

Resources for the Future (RFF) sta! utilized a suite of models to estimate the projected energy-related carbon dioxide emissions reductions under di!erent climate policy proposals, including alternative carbon fee scenarios.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published the findings of its review of reporting on emissions, energy consumption and related matters under the new Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) rules which came into effect from 1 April 2019.

The FRC’s review considered how a sample of companies and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) had complied with the new SECR requirements, identified examples of emerging good practice and outlined its expectations for future reporting. While the sample of reports largely complied with the minimum statutory disclosure requirements for emissions and energy consumption, more needs to be done to make these disclosures understandable and relevant for users. In particular, entities need to explain more clearly how information is calculated, which operations and emissions are included in their reported numbers and the level of third-party assurance obtained over the information. They also need to consider how to integrate these disclosures with other narrative reporting on climate change, especially any emission-reduction targets.

This report offers detailed recommendations to guide the banking industry in fully measuring, analyzing, and acting against threats posed by the physical risks of climate change. It sets out a practical roadmap to help banks conduct risk assessments and incorporate climate risks into their day-to-day decision-making.