PRI backs fiduciary duty and climate change disclosure statement

The UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has thrown its weight behind a statement on fiduciary duty and climate change disclosure put together by the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), the consortium of NGOs that is hosted by environmental data body the CDP, the former Carbon Disclosure Project.

The CDSB is a consortium of eight business and environmental organizations, namely the CDP, Ceres, the Climate Group, the Climate Registry, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), the World Council for Business and Sustainable Development (WCBSD), the World Economic Forum and the World Resources Institute.

It first put the statement together last year, with the support of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEPFI). At the time the CDSB called the statement a “game-changing collective commitment”.

The PRI is joining the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), the network of 100 institutional investors representing more than $11trn in assets, as an investor network supporter of the statement.Institutional investors including Amundi, CalSTRS, Aviva Investors (to name a sample) are also behind the statement, as are companies such as BT, Honda, Philips and Unilever.

The full list of the 80 backers is available here.

“Investors are putting pressure on companies to disclose their climate plans and indicate how they plan to transition their business from a high carbon to a low carbon environment,” said PRI Managing Director Fiona Reynolds. “So initiatives like the fiduciary duty and climate change disclosure statement are a good way to ensure corporate action on climate is being communicated to investors.”

And CDSB MD Mardi McBrien hoped it would send a “clear signal” ahead of the UN climate change talks in Paris later this year.”

The CDSB has developed a common framework for including climate-related disclosure in mainstream corporate reports called the Climate Change Reporting Framework.