From Green Right Now Reports
Recently the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission decided that climate-related risks are material information that publicly traded companies must disclose to investors. Publicly traded companies now must share information about their exposure to risks associated with greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. But it will likely be several months before companies catch up with the SEC rule and begin those disclosures.
In the meantime, there is a helpful tool available from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of approximately 300 faith-based institutional investors that represents more than $100 billion in invested capital. The ICCR and Trucost, an independent environmental data company, have for the last year made available Climate Risk Profiles on more than 150 major companies, with a particular focus on companies facing proxy resolutions from religious shareholders.
“Religious shareholders have been on the cutting edge of the pressure for climate-related disclosure. We filed the first climate-related proxy resolutions nearly 20 years ago in 1991,” ICCR Executive Director Laura Berry said in a statement. She said the “SEC action is wonderful news for shareholders who are committed to seeing to it that America’s largest companies put all of their cards on the table when it comes to the risks associated with climate change.”
ICCR and Trucost launched the company profiles in February, 2009. The reports cover more than 150 corporations – from Abbott Laboratories to Yum! Brands – with a focus on the subjects of 2009 shareholder resolutions filed by faith-based investors, public pension funds and other investors. The shareholder resolutions cover a wide range of issues, including climate change, and were filed with companies in all sectors of the economy.
The climate change indicators for the companies were developed using data from Trucost, an independent environmental data company with offices in London, New York, and Boston. The company maintains a database of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as records of hundreds of environmental indicators including water use, waste disposal and pollutants that cause smog and acid rain.
Each of the “climate risk profiles” takes into account whether or not a company discloses the greenhouse gas emissions from its operations and the percentage of the company’s deviation in GHG emissions from the sector average compared to its closest industry peers. For companies that do not disclose GHG emissions, Trucost calculates their emissions based on its research and methodology.