Giving companies guidance on climate-related disclosures

Companies that need more control over how to effectively measure climate-related reporting will be able to seek advice from financial watchdogs with new guidelines issued.

The regulation, which went into effect in January, requires companies to include transparent and consistent disclosures about their plans and efforts to reduce emissions, subject to review by the Financial Markets Supervisory Authority.

The agency has now released draft guidelines on the consultation process.

The FMA’s climate-related disclosure manager, Jennika Phipps, said the report is similar to what companies have already submitted, but with a more forward-looking focus.

“Because of the similarities in what we are expected to provide in financial reports, records can be minutes of board meetings, or plans, strategies, and reports. It’s everything,” she said.

“But the difference here is that you have to prove compliance with climate-related disclosure frameworks. So often the thought process for attesting forward-looking information is less than financial reporting. It’s quite different compared to , which is pretty backwards and proves you’ve already done it.

“There are some nuances here, but we want to give organizations a tool with this guidance so they can understand what is expected of this kind of framework compared to financial reporting, for example. I am trying to do so.”

Phipps said the agency acknowledged that the reporting system is new and expects the market’s ability to manage data sources and systems for collecting and reporting climate-related information to improve over time. said to expect.

Draft guidelines for properly storing climate-related disclosure records were open for consultation until early August.