Nearly a dozen investors making up the Ceres-led Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) yesterday released a consultation paper calling for the integration of sustainability disclosure requirements into listing rules for U.S. and global stock exchanges.
The initiative comes as part of a growing effort by investors and stock exchanges, including NASDAQ OMX, to make environmental, social and governance disclosure a consistent requirement for corporate listings on stock exchanges. While several exchanges have already adopted their own sustainability listing requirements and guidance, INCR members and NASDAQ OMX have set out to develop a uniform standard that all stock exchanges can use.
“Creating a corporate sustainability reporting standard across all exchanges will encourage a shift in how companies assess the importance of their efforts in environmental, social and governance issues,” said Meyer Frucher, vice chairman at NASDAQ OMX. “It is a win-win for both companies and investors, encouraging sound business practices and responsible investing.”
The paper calls for three primary company disclosures as part of a listing standard:
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Materiality assessment: An assessment in annual financial filings where management will discuss its approach for determining the company's material ESG issues and the outcomes of such an assessment
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Sustainability table of disclosures: Provide a hyperlink in annual financial filings to a Global Reporting Initiative Content Index. Such disclosure will let investors know if key ESG information exists, and if so, its exact location and the completeness of the data.
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Improved corporate ESG disclosure: Companies must provide reporting on a “comply or explain” basis for eight key ESG categories. They can either provide such disclosures or explain why they are not doing so.
“Investors are increasingly frustrated by the lack of sustainability disclosure across markets, and how inconsistent that data is even within the same industry,” said INCR director and Ceres president Mindy Lubber. “We can solve this problem by bringing investors together on standards that make such information comparable and useful. This paper is the result of such discussions.”
INCR is asking investors to review and comment on the paper’s recommendations by May 1 and once comments are considered and key issues are incorporated, the final document will be submitted to stock exchanges for consideration at the World Federation of Exchanges annual meeting in October.
Last year, Ceres released its first major assessment of progress on its Roadmap for Sustainability published in 2010, which found there is a need for overall improvement in how U.S. companies are responding to environmental and social challenges such as climate change, water scarcity and supply chain conditions.
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Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
Mike Hower is the founder of Hower Impact — a boutique consultancy delivering best-in-class strategic communication advisory and support for corporate sustainability, ESG and climate tech.
Published Apr 9, 2013 4am EDT / 1am PDT / 9am BST / 10am CEST