Ceres welcomes SEC's new landmark climate disclosure rule proposal

BOSTON, March 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ceres welcomes a new landmark rule proposal issued today by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that would require U.S. publicly-traded companies to disclose annually how their businesses are assessing, measuring, and managing climate change financial risks. The proposal is aligned with recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the leading global framework supported by more than 3,000 companies and 90 jurisdictions around the world. This includes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including Scopes 1, 2 and 3, allowing investors to identify—and plan for—risks identified in annual reports.

"The SEC is finally heeding the calls from institutional investors, companies, regulators, and the public," said Mindy S. Lubber, Ceres CEO and President and a former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. "The thoughtful climate disclosure proposal announced today would allow investors and companies to better tackle climate-related financial risks across investment portfolios and global supply chains and seize the opportunities that come with acting on those risks."

Ceres, along with investors around the U.S. and the world with tens of trillions of dollars in assets, has been advocating for standardized, mandatory corporate climate disclosure for decades. In 2010, the SEC issued interpretive guidance in response to a petition filed by investors in the Ceres Investor Network. In 2020, the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets released a report, Addressing Climate as a Systemic Risk: A call to action for U.S. financial regulators, outlining the systemic risks of climate change and calling on the SEC to mandate climate risk disclosure, among some 50 other regulatory action steps for federal financial regulators. Investors with more than $1 trillion in assets under management endorsed the report and sent letters to the heads of various financial regulatory agencies, urging them to adopt its recommendations. In public comments to the SEC, 65% of investors called for GHG emissions reporting of scopes 1, 2 and 3. Ceres also sent its own letter to the SEC as part of the public comment period detailing the importance of SEC rule-making to improve climate disclosures.

The public comment period will end no earlier than May 20, 2022. For more information and to find out how you can share your opinions, go to ceres.org/sec.

Media Contact: Reginald Zimmerman, rzimmerman@ceres.org, 617-247-0700 ext. 136

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