Companies are still waiting on the SEC to define its climate disclosure rules - Greater Baton Rouge Business Report
Companies are still waiting on the SEC to define its climate disclosure rules
Companies wanted 2023 to bring certainty on sustainability disclosures and regulations. They didn’t get it.
Instead, they continue to wait for an array of new and developing rules, including a climate disclosure rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Many large companies are also preparing to comply with two new climate-related reporting requirements from California—while navigating a bevy of other new and potential U.S. and international regulations.
“With the multitude of different rules and regulations and a lack of convergence for preparers, it is really becoming the corn maze,” says Mary Agoglia Hoeltzel, senior vice president of tax at Cigna Group. The Bloomfield, Connecticut-based health insurance giant is eagerly waiting for the SEC rule, she said at a conference this month in Washington, D.C. Read the full story.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”