Media giant Bloomberg has officially hopped aboard the sustainability wagon, adding a new section to its site dedicated to climate science and the future of energy. ClimateChanged.com will focus on the ways in which climate change affects financial markets.
“Climate change is fundamentally an economic story, it’s an economic problem,” Bloomberg’s sustainability editor Eric Roston told The Huffington Post. “It’s naturally a business story and it’s naturally a concern to rationally minded executives in any sized enterprise.”
The move seems a natural evolution for the site, which reports regularly on environmental issues and whose namesake — Michael Bloomberg — recently published a book entitled Climate of Hope with Carl Pope of the Sierra Club on how cities and businesses can lead energy reform.
According to Roston, the goal of Climate Changed is to present a complete picture with the hard facts and let readers come to their own conclusions, rather than embarking on a crusade to debunk the stories perpetuated by climate science deniers.
“Comparing what people say to data, then stepping out of the room, is sort of the best thing journalists can do. We don’t have a social mission other than transparency and fact-checking,” said Roston.
Investors — as well as consumers — are increasingly asking for more information about a company’s climate-related risks and non-financial performance, and Bloomberg’s new addition — which will see stories from the media outlet’s 150 offices around the globe neatly packaged in one easy-to-access place — fills a major industry gap and gives the company a leg up over competitors such as The Wall Street Journal who largely refrain from discussing climate change–related issues, despite their undeniable interconnectedness with economic performance and a business’s future viability.
“The business community absolutely demands this, the investor community demands this,” said Jared Sandberg, Senior Executive Editor in Bloomberg’s digital division. “You don’t go through the quarterly results from Coke or Levi’s or anyone else and not come away thinking that they don’t have concerns over limited resources, like water.”
“The question isn’t ‘why now,’ it’s why haven’t we all agreed to do this sooner. We’ve always had this kind of coverage, but I think it’s high time we do something better to admire it, organize it and make it easier for people to discover.”
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Published Apr 25, 2017 6pm EDT / 3pm PDT / 11pm BST / 12am CEST