On Monday, the SEC announced its much anticipated proposal on climate-related disclosure for public companies. As our colleague Allison Handy explains in her Public Chatter blog, the proposal would require disclosure on climate-related risks financial statement metrics, including information on greenhouse gas emissions, weather-related and other natural events, operational resilience, and the company’s climate-related transition plans, targets, or goals, if any. The rule proposal, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in the SEC’s press release, was designed to establish “consistent and clear” reporting obligations for companies and to “provide investors with consistent, comparable, and decision-useful information for making their investment decisions.” Rulemaking around corporate human capital disclosure (including workforce and board diversity) and ESG-related matters involving funds and advisers, remain on the SEC’s regulatory agenda.
