Climate Risk Disclosure Lacking in Ontario

A Coalition of Investors, Environmental Groups and Climate Change Lawyers Call on Ontario Securities Commission to Improve Climate Risk Disclosure.

I am proud to be a part of the study and submission recently made to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) asking for stronger guidance and new rules to enhance climate risk disclosure in public disclosure documents.

Along with Ceres, Climate Action Network Canada and an investor group, the Climate Change Lawyers Network told the OSC about our review of some 2008 reporting documents that found climate risk disclosure in OSC filings were weak or nonexistent among the 35 companies surveyed.

The submission sets out recommendations for how the OSC can better guide companies to move in the direction of meaningful climate risk disclosure. In many cases climate risks are very material to investors and they should be adequately dealt with in a company’s public documents. The submission also encouraged the use of the Global Framework for Climate Risk Disclosure and encouraged the OSC to improve corporate governance disclosure of how companies are addressing climate risk at the board and management levels.

For more information please see the press release and submission