Rivet Software » climate change http://blog.rivetsoftware.com Comply. Control. Communicate. Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:12:52 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 The Sunshine Boys http://blog.rivetsoftware.com/2010/01/27/the-sunshine-boys/ http://blog.rivetsoftware.com/2010/01/27/the-sunshine-boys/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:30:52 +0000 Stewart McKie - Executive Advisor http://blog.rivetsoftware.com/?p=1142 When I saw the SEC Climate Portal on a Google search results page, I mistakenly thought this was the US S.E.C.’s rather than the Singapore Environment Council’s climate change portal. But I wonder how long it will be before we do see an S.E.C. climate portal? Given the increasing interest in the potential impact of climate change on businesses worldwide and item 2 on the agenda for ‘The Sunshine Act’ meeting on Jan. 27, 2010:

Item 2: The Commission will consider a recommendation to publish an interpretive release to provide guidance to public companies regarding the Commission’s current disclosure requirements concerning matters relating to climate change.

Back in November 2009, a petition organized by Ceres on behalf of 20 large investors and other interested groups was presented to the S.E.C. The petition called for better disclosure of risks and opportunities relating to climate change in S.E.C. filings. According to EnvironmentalLeader.com, significant numbers of companies in 2008 failed to report any risks or opportunities relating to climate change outside of the utilities and energy sectors. Talk about an elephant in the room.

Kurt Cagle considered the implications of this for the XBRL community back in February 2009 as did a reader of this blog Daniel Roberts in December 2009. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has been working on an XBRL taxonomy for sustainability reporting for some years and a couple of Australian academics, Gilbert & Schmidt, published a paper in 2009 on XBRL Enabled Social and Environmental Sustainability Reporting.

The pressing need for improved climate change disclosure and reporting is a wonderful opportunity to use a ‘greenfield’ global requirement, one that is not subject to dickering over the harmonization of existing entrenched standards as is the case with ‘accounting’ XBRL, to drive the definition of a new taxonomy that is in every nation’s interest. And the US S.E.C could help to lead the way.

Update: 01 Feb. 2010

SEC Issues Interpretive Guidance on Disclosure Related to Business or Legal Developments Regarding Climate Change.

Update: 02 Feb. 2010

Follow some of the hoo-hah generated by this guidance here.

Update: 03 Feb. 2010

SEC Commission Guidance Regarding Disclosure Related to Climate Change

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