Standard to aid companies on climate reporting
London, 28 May: Corporations wanting to report data relevant to climate change now have a standard procedure to follow, with the launch of a draft framework by the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) this week.

The CDSB was founded in 2007 to enhance corporate disclosure of climate change data, for the benefit of shareholders and prospective investors.

Its proposed framework aims to improve reporting, rather than demand more data, and is focused on four areas: climate change strategic analysis; regulatory risks from climate change; physical risks from climate change; and greenhouse gas emissions.

The ‘Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard’ developed by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol is being used as the basic emissions reporting standard and underlies the CDSB framework.

The framework “represents a vital step forward towards encouraging boardrooms to disclose climate change-related data in their annual reports by way of standard procedure”, according to Paul Dickinson, chief executive of the Carbon Disclosure Project, which is a member of the CDSB and acts as its secretariat.

Wolfgang Grosse Entrup, head of environment and sustainability at German chemicals giant Bayer, said the framework will be “instrumental in enhancing the calibre and comparability of disclosures within corporations’ reporting”.

Comments on the draft are invited by 25 September 2009.