Resource Database

Directors of Hong Kong-incorporated companies are obliged to take climate risk into account in the discharge of their obligations to the company or face the potential for personal liability, warns this legal opinion.

The proposals represent the views the Association of Real Estate Funds, British Property Federation, Commercial Real Estate Finance Council Europe, European Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles, Investment Property Forum, Pensions for Purpose, Social Market Foundation and The Good Economy – together the Associations.

It is submitted in response to a request from the UK Regulator, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), for input on the development of real estate-specific metrics. The aim is to provide consistent, transparent, and comparable reporting and disclosure both across the EU and UK, as well as internationally for real estate portfolios, covering all real estate asset classes. The reporting and disclosure should be aligned with TCFD guidelines and the evolving UK Sustainability Disclosure Requirements.

The Associations look forward to progressing the FCA dialogue and resolving a time framework for implementation.

This TCFD reporting example on Storebrand focuses on key disclosures against the TCFD recommendations for the financial services industry.

Storebrand is a financial group, headquartered in Oslo, Norway, which offers pension, savings, insurance and banking products to individuals, businesses, and public enterprises.

The analysis of Storebrand’s TCFD disclosure highlights the role of the finance team, and the value that can be brought to the process.

This report serves as a source of information to guide Canadian policymakers, business leaders, pension fiduciaries, and civil society members in their efforts to align fossil fuel subsidies with the country’s net-zero policy targets.

It includes recent information on the government’s international policy commitments at the United Nations sponsored Twenty-Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP 26) that held from October to November 2021, federal ministerial mandates in December 2021 and other national responses as of February 2022 and forecasts other implications in Canada.

In 2022, the commercial real estate industry has a unique opportunity to influence how the TCFD reporting guidelines are applied to property assets and funds.

UK’s Financial Conduct Authority continues to take a leading role on ESG issues. Large UK pension funds and fund managers have to comply with the TCFD guidelines, and the FCA looks to expand and broaden the guidelines through its Sustainability Disclosure Requirements.

The industry must take forward this initiative and address the quantitative and qualitative components that are unique to the sector. The article suggests solutions to be developed for appropriate commercial real estate metrics.

With EU and UK regulators and the market are accelerating their focus on ESG climate-related disclosures in commercial real estate, the authors suggest solutions to be prioritised by fund managers and regulators.

They advocate for a dynamic, consensus-focused engagement between industry and regulators that dovetails with regulators flexibly endorsing industry initiatives. Industry collaborating with regulators must recognise the win-win outcome of solving the metrics challenges.

Key COP26 goals include collaboration to deliver net zero: this decade is decisive. Industry must work together with regulators to address the evolving metrics challenges and turn solutions to these challenges into action.

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.

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.