(C12.4) Have you published information about your organization’s response to climate change and GHG emissions performance for this reporting year in places other than in your CDP response? If so, please attach the publication(s).
Change from last year
Modified guidance
Rationale
Best practice in corporate environmental reporting is to integrate non-financial metrics and data into mainstream financial reports. Investors want to understand where and how companies communicate their climate change strategies and emissions figures, and whether these communications are in line with best practice.
Connection to other frameworks
Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production
Response options
Please complete the following table. You are able to add rows by using the “Add Row” button at the bottom of the table.
Publication | Status | Attach the document | Page/Section reference | Content elements | Comment |
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Select from:
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Select from:
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Attach your document here. | Text field [maximum 500 characters] |
Select all that apply:
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Text field [maximum 2,400 characters] |
[Add Row]
Requested content
General
- This question asks about communication of your position on climate change and carbon emissions outside of your CDP response.
- Privately held companies that do not have a legal obligation to produce annual reporting should still select “In mainstream reports” if they publish any annual sustainability reporting.
- Even where the relevant information is web-based, you must produce a static document to attach, due to the need to maintain a fixed response over time that can be accessed in full at any time in the future; a URL is inherently dynamic and therefore cannot fulfill this requirement.
Publication (column 1)
- Select from the drop-down options the type of publication your organization has published in response to climate change and its GHG emissions performance for the reporting year in places other than its CDP response.
- CDP uses the CDSB Framework definition of mainstream reports, i.e. annual reporting packages in which organizations are required to deliver their audited financial results under the corporate, compliance or securities laws of the country in which they operate and are normally publicly available. It is acknowledged that, in some jurisdictions, multiple documents may meet this definition. Please attach only those which reference your organization’s response to climate change and GHG emissions performance.
- Other regulatory filings are reports which are required through regional or national legislation, but which do not fall under the definition of mainstream reports stated above.
- Voluntary communications include optional sustainability/CSR reports or any other voluntary consumer facing publications, advertising, company websites, executive speeches and/or presentations.
- If you do not publish any content regarding your organization's response to climate change and GHG emissions performance, please select "No publications with information about our response to climate-related issues and GHG emissions performance".
- If you select “Other, please specify,” provide a label for the publication.
Status (column 2)
- Select from the drop-down options the status of the publication type selected in column 1.
- The report should relate to the reporting year although it is acknowledged that it may not be published in the reporting year.
- Where reports are not ready for publication at the time of submission of your CDP response, select one of the options that indicate the report is underway.
- Where you can attach the previous year’s report to demonstrate that the information is routinely published in this way, select “Underway – previous year attached” and complete the remaining two columns of the table with regard to this report.
- Where this is the first year that you will have published information in this way, select “Underway – this is our first year” and leave the other two columns in the table blank. Where the publication is already available, select “Complete.”
Page/Section reference (column 4)
- Identify the page(s) and section(s) of the report attached that refers to climate change and GHG emissions performance. If the whole document relates to climate change and GHG, please state this. If your document is only 1 page long, please still state this.
Content elements (column 5)
- Select all content elements that apply from the drop-down that relate to the publication type selected in column 1.
Explanation of terms
- Mainstream reports: in line with CDSB, this refers to the annual reporting packages in which organizations are required to deliver their audited financial results under the corporate, compliance or securities laws of the country in which they are incorporated or, if relevant, operate. Mainstream reports are traditionally publicly available. They provide information to existing and prospective investors about the financial position and financial performance of the organisation. The exact provisions under which companies are required to deliver mainstream financial reports differ internationally, but will generally contain financial statements and other financial reporting, including governance statements and management commentary.
Additional information
The Climate Disclosure Standards Board
About
- The Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) is a consortium of business and environmental organizations. CDSB is committed to advancing and aligning the global mainstream corporate reporting model to equate natural capital with financial capital.
- CDSB does this by offering companies a framework for reporting climate change and natural capital information with the same rigor as financial information. In turn this helps them to provide investors with decision-useful environmental information via the mainstream corporate report, enhancing the efficient allocation of capital. Regulators also benefit from compliance-ready materials.
- Recognising that information about natural capital and financial capital is equally essential for an understanding of corporate performance, CDSB’s work builds trust and transparency needed to foster resilient capital markets. Collectively, CDSB aims to contribute to more sustainable economic, social and environmental systems.
- CDSB’s Mission is to create the enabling conditions for material climate change and natural capital information to be integrated into mainstream reporting. In effect, this helps create the landscape for companies to translate their sustainability information into business impacts and long-term value.
- To fulfil its mission and vision, CDSB seeks to standardize environmental information reporting through collaborating, identifying and coalescing around the most widely shared and tested reporting approaches that are emerging around the world.
- CDSB advances its mission by:
- Helping companies interpret and better understand their data: CDSB will drive the corporate uptake in current – and future – initiatives such as the TCFD recommendations by providing technical and educational support to corporates and regulators;
- Creating a technical architecture: CDSB will develop and provide a common language and reporting frameworks and develop technical material supporting contentious issues or market needs, spearheaded by the CDSB Framework;
- Making connections: CDSB will engage with corporate, regulators, investors, standard-setters and non-profits to develop industry-driven reporting tools, practices and regulations, and shape regulatory developments. - In April 2018 CDSB released an updated version of its Framework, the CDSB Framework for reporting environmental information, natural capital and associated business impacts, which is now aligned with the TCFD recommendations and other major reporting requirements. Further information on the CDSB Framework can be found on its website.
Why does CDP support the CDSB Framework?
- CDP works to transform the way the world does business to prevent dangerous climate change and protect our natural resources, particularly by providing relevant environmental information to investors. Given that an essential way that investors utilize data is through mainstream financial reports, it is integral to CDP’s mission that companies use the CDSB Framework to provide natural capital information to investors through their mainstream financial report.
- Therefore, the CDSB Framework provides an important tool for formalizing and advancing the significant progress CDP has made in developing climate change-related and natural capital reporting by bringing it into mainstream financial reporting.
- CDP acts as secretariat to CDSB, managing its work program on behalf of the Board members.
Integrated reporting
- The primary purpose of an integrated report is to explain to providers of financial capital how an organization creates value over the short, medium and long term. An integrated report aims to communicate a clear, concise, integrated story that explains how all of an organization’s resources are creating value.
- The International <IR> Framework takes a principles-based approach. The intent is to strike an appropriate balance between flexibility and prescription that recognizes the wide variation in individual circumstances of different organizations while enabling a sufficient degree of comparability across organizations to meet relevant information needs. It does not prescribe specific key performance indicators, measurement methods, or the disclosure of individual matters, but it does include a small number of requirements that are to be applied before an integrated report can be said to be in accordance with the Framework.
The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
About
- Launched in December 2015, the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) industry-led Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) aims to develop voluntary and consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures for use by companies in providing information to investors, lenders, insurers, and other stakeholders.
The TCFD strives to:
- Promote more informed investment, credit (or lending), and insurance underwriting decisions;
- Enable stakeholders to better understand the concentrations of carbon-related assets in the financial sector and the financial system’s exposures to climate-related risks;
- Foster an early assessment of these risks, and facilitate market discipline;
- Thus providing a source of data that can be analyzed at a systemic level to facilitate authorities’ assessments of the materiality of any risks posed by climate change.
TCFD’s mission
- The TCFD was tasked with developing a set of voluntary, financially relevant, climate disclosure recommendations that could promote informed investment, credit, and insurance underwriting decisions that could in turn enable stakeholders to better understand assets exposed to climate-related risks.
- Its aim is to enable stakeholders to allocate capital efficiently through the transition to a low-carbon economy without a potential dislocation of capital in the financial markets.
- The TCFD’s final report presents a principle-based set of recommendations for voluntary disclosure that aims to balance the needs of data users with the challenges faced by preparers. The report provides the overarching core recommendations with supporting information on climate-related risks, opportunities, financial impacts, and scenario analysis.
- Further information on TCFD can be found in CDP's technical note on the TCFD's recommendations.