Consultation response: ‘Streamlined energy and carbon reporting’

This is a submission by the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in response to a consultation on the UK’s government proposal for a more streamlined and effective energy and carbon reporting framework. The consultation was announced in October 2017 by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

The question of how companies should disclose climate change risk to their investors is receiving an increasing amount of attention. Listed companies in the UK are already required to disclose environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations under the UK Companies Act. Starting from 2017, the UK’s adoption of the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive means certain non-listed companies with more than 500 employees will also be required to make disclosures about environmental matters. However, disclosure of climate risks – both transitional and physical – could be applied both more generally (expanding the reach of climate disclosure) and uniformly (standardising the disclosures).

This consultation response was first submitted via the CitizenSpace online platform.