Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Special projects A special project of CDP, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) is committed to the integration of climate change-related information into corporation’s mainstream financial reporting. In short, it is about linking financial and climate change-related reporting to provide policy-makers and investors with clear, reliable information for robust decision making. The team at CDSB works to ensure fair and transparent markets and encourage a standardized approach to climate change-related reporting. It does not aim to develop a new standard but rather to work as a collaborative forum to improve existing standards and practices. CDSB offers a global climate change reporting framework that is intended for use by companies making disclosures in, or linked to, their mainstream financial reports. It covers information about the risks and opportunities that climate change presents to their strategy and seeks to filter out what is of most value to investors in understanding how climate change affects a company’s financial performance and condition. The framework adopts existing standards and practices including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and International Financial Reporting Standards as well as reflecting developments in regulatory and voluntary reporting and carbon trading rules. It is ‘standard-ready’ for adoption by regulators contemplating the introduction or development of climate change disclosure practices. CDSB provides an important focus for formalising and advancing the significant progress CDP has made in developing climate change-related reporting by bringing it into mainstream financial reporting. CDP act as secretariat to this important global project, advancing its work programme in association with leading representatives of the accounting, business, standard setting and regulatory professions. Find out more about CDSB Read about CDSB’s climate change reporting framework CDP and CDSB’s response to Defra’s consultation on greenhouse gas emissions reporting draft regulations for quoted companies, October 2012