New guidelines coming for environmental reporting

A new framework to guide organisations’ reporting of environmental information is in the final stages of development.

The Climate Disclosure Standards Board has published a final consultation draft of its Climate Change Reporting Framework. Comments on the draft are sought by December 14th and can be submitted online. The final framework is scheduled to be published in March.

According to the draft, an organisation should determine the disclosures to be made based on what’s valuable to investors. The disclosure process should include a thorough assessment of how climate change has affected or potentially could affect the organisation’s strategic objectives, the draft says.

The framework is being designed to align with the requirements of a new EU directive on environmental and social disclosures, and support companies that are required to comply with the directive.

The update was undertaken to provide new guidance on reporting environmental information. The original Climate Disclosure Standards Board framework was published in September 2010 and focused on the risks and opportunities that climate change represents for companies’ strategy, financial performance, and condition.

The updated framework is being designed to adopt relevant principles from existing reporting standards and practices that already are familiar to businesses. It is designed to identify and use the most widely shared and tested reporting approaches that are emerging around the world to standardise reporting of environmental information.

—Ken Tysiac (ktysiac@aicpa.org) is a CGMA Magazine editorial director.