Application Guidance for Climate-Related Disclosures

29 July 2020News

The Climate Guidance has been designed to help companies put into place the thinking and processes necessary for high-quality material climate disclosures and allow them and their investors to best navigate the risks and opportunities of climate change. The Climate Guidance is to be used in conjunction with the CDSB Framework, providing additional process, resources and nuance to the Framework to ensure that companies are best able to recognise material climate risks and opportunities and deliver decision-useful climate information in the mainstream report.

The Climate Guidance is designed around the first six reporting requirements of the CDSB Framework:

REQ-01 Governance
REQ-02 Management’s environmental policies, strategies and targets
REQ-03 Risks and opportunities
REQ-04 Sources of environmental impact
REQ-05 Performance and comparative analysis
REQ-06 Outlook

These six reporting requirements of the CDSB Framework set out the key content elements for reporting material environmental information in the mainstream report. For each of the six reporting requirements, the Climate Guidance provides:

A checklist for making effective climate disclosures;
Detailed reporting suggestions and guidance to complement the CDSB reporting requirement in relation to climate issues;
A selection of further useful resources to assist companies in developing their mainstream climate reporting; and
Explained examples of good practice in mainstream climate reporting.

The Climate Guidance also offers some further important considerations for companies in making mainstream climate disclosures, covering aspects of the reporting principles and remaining requirements of the CDSB Framework. In addition, the Climate Guidance provides an overview of the significance of climate change to business, explaining the importance of physical and transition risks, and highlighting the key and unique characteristics of the climate system and their importance to corporate reporting. Finally, the Appendices to the Climate Guidance provides a mapping of the CDSB Framework to the TCFD Recommendations and a list of additional CDSB resources for preparing effective climate disclosures.

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