Sustainability standards setters release implementation guide for complying with TCFD recommendations for communicating about climate-related financial risk.
In June 2017, the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) published recommendations for climate-related financial risk disclosures in mainstream corporate filings. More than 600 organizations have publicly expressed support for the recommendations but many have cited a need for practical guidance on how to implement them. Today, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) have jointly released an effective solution for TCFD implementation by organizations in all industries and sectors around the world.
“Companies are showing strong interest in managing their exposure to climate-related risk by committing to the TCFD recommendations. However, few have a clear understanding of how to implement those recommendations,” said Madelyn Antoncic, CEO of the SASB Foundation. “SASB and CDSB felt it was imperative to help companies achieve their goals with this comprehensive guide.”
The TCFD recommendations are market-driven disclosures that allow companies to gain greater insight into the climate-related risks and opportunities they face, and deliver consistent, comparable and reliable corporate disclosure to inform decision-making by investors, lenders, and insurers. Many companies already disclose some climate-related information, but the financial implications are often not apparent, and the related performance and risk metrics are often not comparable. Using CDSB and SASB tools to follow the TCFD recommendations, organizations can provide more effective climate-related disclosures that are comparable within industries and have clear links to material financial impacts.
Drawing on each organisation’s already well-established reporting standards, tools and frameworks, this new guide offers companies the “how-to” to drive implementation of the 11 recommended TCFD disclosures,
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“The guide takes the recommendations from principles to practice, increasing the adoption of the TCFD recommendations and enhancing the robustness, consistency and comparability of such information,” said CDSB Managing Director Mardi McBrien. “This will not only benefit companies through better risk management but investors who can use the disclosures to allocate capital at the scale and pace required to accelerate the transition to a low carbon and climate resilient economy.”
The collaboration between SASB and CDSB reinforces the work of the Corporate Reporting Dialogue’s Better Alignment Project, a two-year project focusing on driving better alignment in the corporate reporting landscape, to make it easier for companies to prepare coherent disclosures that meet the information needs of capital markets and society. In its first year, the Better Alignment Project is focusing specifically on mapping elements from the five participating organizations’ sustainability frameworks against the principles, disclosures, and indicators included in the TCFD Recommendations report.
