Over the weekend, I was reading the BusinessWeek article in the url below about socially responsible investing (Issues: Investing, p184). The article was interesting, but what really caught my eye was this paragraph:
“On Jan. 27 the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission approved a standard that requires public companies to weigh the impact of climate-change laws and regulations when deciding which information to disclose in corporate filings. The SEC said companies should also consider international accords, indirect effects such as reduced demand for goods tied to greenhouse gas production, and physical impacts such as the potential for increased insurance claims in coastal regions due to rising sea levels in their assessments.”
This seems to be a pretty big deal to me. Yet, I read multiple newspapers a day and I haven’t seen any articles about this announcement. Did I miss it? If the SEC really is requiring publicly-traded firms to “weigh the impact of climate-change laws and regulations when deciding which information to disclose in corporate filings,” that has the potential to alter significantly both the degree and kind of information firms release. As such, I would think it has ramifications similar to those sought by the movement to require executives to consider stakeholders beyond their shareholders in making decisions (e.g., see http://www.c4cr.org/).
Did anyone catch this when it was announced and do you have any thoughts on whether this is potentially as important as I think it is?
Take care
David
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
Social Investing Gathers Momentum
By David Bogoslaw
February 3, 2010
Niche no more: Socially responsible funds are putting up impressive performance numbers—and their reach is spreading
