4 March, 2021

Why serious investors demand more than just climate disclosure

Investors serious about climate change cannot settle for disclosure; their attention must now be on action, writes Sophia McNab of investment charity ShareAction.

Drax power station, carbon emissions, coal

The power-generation industry is one of the worst offenders for carbon emissions. Photo: Drax Power Station, Selby, North Yorkshire. By Neil Mitchell / Shutterstock

In 2014, when I first started engaging pension funds on the issue of climate change, a worrying number would respond that they could not take savers’ “ethical concerns” into account. Not only a simplistic reading of their fiduciary duty, but a complete misunderstanding of the financial risk posed by climate change. Since then the culture and discourse around climate risk has shifted significantly; climate change is now seen as a mainstream risk to financial stability by investors and regulators around the world. The recommendations by the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) last year topped off years of work

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climate change, climate risk, finance, Investor Decarbonisation Initiative, low-carbon economy, responsible investment, science-based targets, ShareAction, shell, Spring 2018, TCFD