climate change

Vanguard seeks corporate disclosure on risks from climate change

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

Vanguard Group on Monday said it has urged companies to disclose how climate change could affect their business and asset valuations, reflecting how the environment has become a priority for the investment industry.

Under pressure from investors, Vanguard and other fund companies have pushed to pass several high-profile shareholder resolutions on climate risk at big energy firms like Exxon Mobil Corp and Occidental Petroleum Corp during the spring proxy season.Vanguard manages about $4 trillion and is often the top shareholder in big U.S. corporations through its massive index funds – giving it a major voice in setting corporate agendas.

Vanguard, the biggest U.S. mutual fund firm by assets, had not supported climate activists on similar measures. But Glenn Booraem, Vanguard’s investment stewardship officer, said in a telephone interview on Monday the issue as well as shareholder proposals have evolved.

Source: Vanguard seeks corporate disclosure on risks from climate change

New Zealand super goes green | Financial Standard

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

Guardians of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund announced the $14 billion global passive equity portfolio will employ a low-carbon methodology, exiting active investment in companies including Genesis Energy and NZ Oil and Gas.This, according to fund chief executive Adrian Orr, makes the fund more resilient to climate change investment risks such as stranded assets, and brings its focus on addressing climate change risk in line with current global best practice by institutional investors.

“There is a global consensus that climate change presents material risks for long term investors,” Orr said.

“Leading investors around the world are adjusting their portfolios to address climate change risk and capture opportunities stemming from the transition to a low-carbon economy.”

Fund chief investment officer Matt Whineray said financial markets were under-pricing climate change risk over the fund’s long investment timeframe.

Source: New Zealand super goes green | Financial Standard

Lawsuit Challenges Failure to Report Climate Change Risk

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

A fascinating case brought against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia charges that failure to include climate change risk assessment is a material omission.

a. CBA knew, or ought to have known, that CBA’s Climate Change Business Risks might have a material or major impact on the operations, financial position, and prospects for future financial years of CBA’s business and CBA’s Customers;
b. CBA had, or ought to have had, one or more business strategies to manage CBA’s Climate Change Business Risks; and
c. CBA’s Members would reasonably require, in order to make an informed
assessment of the operations, financial position, business strategies, and prospects for future financial years, of CBA: a summary of CBA’s Climate Change Business Risks and of the business strategies employed by CBA to manage those risks (including whether it had any strategy or strategies to manage those risks)

Recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

The Financial Stability Board’s industry-led “Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures” has issued its final report with standards and guidance for voluntary climate-related financial risk disclosures in SEC filings.  The most significant aspects are the imprimatur of the G20 and the credibility and support it lends to investor initiatives calling for portfolio companies to adopt its recommendations. The report notes:

As you know, warming of the planet caused by greenhouse gas emissions poses serious risks to the global economy and will have an impact across many economic sectors. It is difficult for investors to know which companies are most at risk from climate change, which are best prepared, and which are taking action.

The Task Force’s report establishes recommendations for disclosing clear, comparable and consistent information about the risks and opportunities presented by climate change. Their widespread adoption will ensure that the effects of climate change become routinely considered in business and investment decisions. Adoption of these recommendations will also help companies better demonstrate responsibility and foresight in their consideration of climate issues. That will lead to smarter, more efficient allocation of capital, and help smooth the transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon economy.

The industry Task Force spent 18 months consulting with a wide range of business and financial leaders to hone its recommendations and consider how to help companies better communicate key climate-related information. The feedback we received in response to the Task Force’s draft report confirmed broad support from industry and others, and involved productive dialogue among companies and banks, insurers, and investors. This was and remains a collaborative process, and as these recommendations are implemented, we hope that this dialogue and feedback continues.

Since the Task Force began its work, we have also seen a significant increase in demand from investors for improved climate-related financial disclosures. This comes amid unprecedented support among companies for action to tackle climate change.

An Insurance Premium To Reduce Risks Of Global Warming And Unsafe Infrastructure

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

Harry G. Broadman has an excellent suggestion for reducing the ability of fossil fuel companies to externalize their costs:

Imagine a country increasingly referred to as a ‘failed state’ taking a responsible action that imposes a surcharge on fossil fuels that both reduces consumption of them to curb emissions of greenhouse gases and helps finance investment to modernize the world’s largest economy’s embarrassingly dilapidated and unsafe infrastructure network.As the Trump White House and the Congress try to turn their attention to tax reform, there is simply no excuse for them to not enact the addition of a specific tax to the retail prices of gasoline and diesel fuel.  It’s a classic ‘twofor’ and a policy prescription that pays for itself.

Source: An Insurance Premium To Reduce Risks Of Global Warming And Unsafe Infrastructure

The space between climate change and financial statements

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

The TCFD wants to improve the quality of climate-related financial disclosures, and that means company filings that capture the impact of climate change on businesses over time.This goal goes beyond just producing, as the TCFD calls it, “forward-looking” climate information. It also requires that both the risks and opportunities of climate change be broadly integrated with financial statements.

But big challenges arise from the TCFD recommendations. The obvious one is that there are no specific standards or methodologies to integrate such disclosures into accounting practices.Financial accounting standards do not mention “climate change” and by definition are backward looking, designed to produce financial statements that portray the true and fair position of a company at a year-end. They are a snapshot of the past, not the future.

Jon Williams, a member of the TCFD and PwC Sustainability & Climate Change Partner, says: “In my view, rather than trying to spend the next decade coming up with a new climate-change reporting standard, it will be useful for the TCFD or another body to produce an interpretation of accounting standards through the lense of climate change.”

The TCFD final report highlights the “interconnectivity of its recommendations with existing financial statement and disclosure requirements” of the IASB and FASB. It explicitly mentions IAS 36 (impairment of assets) and IAS 37 (provisions, contingent liabilities and contingent assets).

Source: The space between climate change and financial statements

Helping Boards Face Climate Change | Ceres

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

We think of it differently: climate change creates risks and opportunities in supply chain, operations, product development, compliance, and branding that need to be explicitly and transparently assessed as a part of corporate strategy. We’re uncomfortable with the use of terms like “philanthropy” in this context. But we believe this article is worth reading.

Susan MacCormac, partner with Morrison & Foerster and co-chair of the company’s energy and clean technology groups, tells Corporate Secretary she thinks of sustainability issues in three ways.

The first is as an extension of CSR – a kind of philanthropy involving activities that are not part of a company’s core business but that can be of benefit to the environment or the community. Such activities seldom have board involvement, unless they entail significant expenditures.

The second strand involves the law that has developed over the last five years requiring compliance around supply chains, conflict minerals and – increasingly – ‘integrated reporting’, Mac Cormac observes. This strand of sustainability involves issues on which a company is required to report because they are material to operations and therefore are within the purview of the corporate secretary.

The third area involves how the company’s operations are impacted by ESG issues. ‘And that is core to how the company operates, not the extension of philanthropy and not compliance,’ Mac Cormac points out. In this area – which she calls ‘the meat of the matter’ – the role of the corporate secretary is to determine whether management is focused on the issue, because some aspects of it are operational. The corporate secretary should help the board decide whether it has only an oversight role, or if it needs to take a more active role, Mac Cormac points out: ‘And then you reach the question: if the board has oversight, or active involvement, what does that look like?’

Source: Helping Boards Face Climate Change | Ceres

High-powered CEOs at U.S.-India Business Council vote to split from U.S. Chamber – The Washington Post

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

The Washington Post reports that the Chamber of Commerce, Washington’s most powerful pro-corporate lobby, is having its own governance problems as some of its members are uncomfortable with the positions the Chamber is taking and one group is trying to break off.

The board of the U.S.-India Business Council — whose membership includes the chief executives of Pepsi and MasterCard — has voted unanimously to break off from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, saying that “recent actions taken by the Chamber have left us with no alternative but to take this vote to formally separate.”The vote by 29 USIBC board members was the culmination of a running battle with U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue that dates back to 2010 and which came to a boil during the recent visit to Washington by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi…

The fight between the USIBC, which has about 350 members, and the Chamber was largely about turf and independence. A member of the USIBC board said that Donohue was unhappy that the USIBC invited Vice President Pence to a meeting because Donohue wanted to invite Pence to a different event.

A person close to the USIBC board said that Donohue also wanted to oust certain members of the USIBC board and install others, moves that would be unprecedented in the history of the council.

Donahue is arguing that the USIBC cannot be split off from the Chamber.

Steven Mufson asks if this is a sign that the Chamber’s influence is slipping. The very size and power of the Chamber has led to schisms over policies on issues like health care and climate change.

Companies like GE, which long relied on the Chamber to be their guide and advocate in Washington, are now as politically sophisticated and connected as the Chamber — if not more so. And in an era that allows virtually unlimited independent political spending, they can form their own more focused, and perhaps more effective, associations. Many lobbyists who represent companies individually think the Chamber has taken on the lumbering character of its aging building, a 92-year-old limestone edifice lined with Corinthian columns overlooking the White House.

Source: High-powered CEOs at U.S.-India Business Council vote to split from U.S. Chamber – The Washington Post

Breaking the Ice: Investors Warm to Climate Change

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

A few years ago, climate change was a fringe issue. Ignored by mainstream investors, environmental resolutions were lucky to receive 5 percent support. Now, issuers who try to ignore the associated risks could face serious financial consequences.

The victory of Occidental’s shareholders was arguably the result of a perfect storm. Over the past few years, climate change resolutions have become increasingly sophisticated. Where once they tended to be overly prescriptive and confrontational, they now aim to appeal to all parties involved.Many resolutions exploit investors’ fiduciary obligation to act in the best interests of their clients by emphasizing the relevance of the disclosures being requested. Recent climate change proposals also make more of an effort to placate companies. Indeed, by being more general, and in many cases advisory, most current proposals rely on investor support to pressure companies into implementing what they want.

Source: Breaking the Ice: Investors Warm to Climate Change

Investors expect to meet with Exxon on climate-impact report | Reuters

Posted on by ValueEdge blog staff

Exxon Mobil Corp investors will push to meet with oil company officials this summer to hash out elements of a climate-impact analysis following a shareholder vote calling for studies of technology and climate-related risks to its business.Exxon has said that it will reconsider its opposition to the request, not that it would begin discussions or initiate new studies. The shareholder proposal, filed by 54 groups including financial, religious and corporate governance activists, won the support on Wednesday of 62 percent of Exxon holders.

“I anticipate we’ll be having a meeting this summer,” said Tracey Rembert, assistant director of Catholic Responsible Investing at Christian Brothers Investment Services, one of the 54 co-filers.The White House’s decision on Thursday to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change has no bearing on the proposal. “We expect the scenario assessment will start to be done quickly at Exxon,” Rembert said.

The investors behind the proposal routinely met in past years with Exxon between December and February to discuss annual meeting proposals, she said. Earlier discussions because of the majority vote are in order.

Source: Investors expect to meet with Exxon on climate-impact report | Reuters