The Centre for Climate Engagement (CCE) has developed an interactive tool for directors and business leaders to understand and identify the climate-related disclosure initiatives – including targets, metrics, reporting frameworks, standards and data – most relevant to the businesses they represent.
The CCE has also prepared an explainer in collaboration with the Climate Governance Initiative providing an overview of the evolving and interconnected landscape of climate targets, metrics, reporting standards and frameworks for non-executive directors (NEDs) in the UK. There are a range of frameworks and standards supporting corporate disclosure of climate, sustainability and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) information. This summary, alongside our interactive tool, will help NEDs to understand and identify the initiatives most relevant for their boards.
Tool for navigating the climate disclosure landscape
Development of the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards under the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) will help to consolidate the labyrinth of sustainability reporting frameworks and standards that currently exist. The CCE has developed a simple tool for ‘Navigating the climate disclosure landscape.’ This tool provides basic information about what the different frameworks and standards are used for and who they are aimed at framed under the following categories:
- Standards for Measuring GHG Emissions provide guidance on how to account for and present data on emissions. The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol provides an internationally accepted approach for accounting and reporting on greenhouse gas emissions.
- Climate Targets are a critical step in an organisation’s decarbonisation strategy allowing businesses to define climate ambition within a specific timeframe and track progress. The Science-Based Targets Initiative, The Climate Pledge and PAS 2060 all support business to set ambitious climate targets.
- Management System Standards provide guidance for companies to create processes to manage risks and opportunities and to deliver continued performance improvements. Common standards include ISO 14001 to manage environmental issues.
- Sustainability Reporting and Disclosure Frameworks and Standards provide guidance on how a business’ sustainability information should be presented in publicly available reports. These frameworks are important to facilitate disclosure of comparable, consistent and reliable information, for example, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards, the SASB Standards, CDP and the TCFD Recommendations.
- Investor data via sustainability indices supports institutional investors to benchmark companies on a range of ESG metrics. MSCI is the world’s largest provider of ESG indexes for investors. Stock market indices also provide benchmarks for listed companies including FTSE4Good, Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, Singapore Exchange (SGX) Sustainability Indices, and the Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Index.
The tool can be filtered by different categories, depending which different elements of disclosure the user is interested in e.g. disclosure frameworks and standards, GHG calculation tools, science based targets, etc. Click through to the tool below to explore the climate disclosure landscape.
Slingshot