Warming Up to Climate Change Risk Disclosure

Investors are clamoring for companies to include more climate change risk disclosure in their periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Yet public companies in the United States do a poor job of disclosing to investors how climate change affects their businesses. Although there have been several proposals for more voluntary disclosure of these risks and one petition for guidance from the SEC, these proposals are not effecting changes in disclosure practices quickly enough. This Article builds on existing proposals to create guidelines for mandatory climate change risk disclosure in periodic securities filings.

The guidelines seek to provide investors with meaningful disclosure, without overburdening the companies making the disclosure. This framework could be used by the SEC in formulating guidance regarding climate change risk disclosure under existing disclosure rules, or in creating new rules mandating the disclosure. Investors are clamoring for companies to include more climate change risk disclosure in their periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Yet public companies in the United States do a poor job of disclosing to investors how climate change affects their businesses.

Although there have been several proposals for more voluntary disclosure of these risks and one petition for guidance from the SEC, these proposals are not effecting changes in disclosure practices quickly enough. This Article builds on existing proposals to create guidelines for mandatory climate change risk disclosure in periodic securities filings. The guidelines seek to provide investors with meaningful disclosure, without overburdening the companies making the disclosure. This framework could be used by the SEC in formulating guidance regarding climate change risk disclosure under existing disclosure rules, or in creating new rules mandating the disclosure.