Are you prepared to respond to the $50 trillion dollar question being posed by your shareholders:
What’s your carbon footprint?
Wallace Partners can help you understand and manage the growing interest in Environmental Governance.
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
Monday, February 4 marks the release of the Carbon Disclosure Project’s 6th annual survey, which asks companies about their strategic plans to address carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.
This year the Project represents more than 350 institutional investors with combined assets of over $50 trillion. These investors are signatories to the letter that will land in the inbox of over 3,000 of the world’s largest companies. These signatories include the likes of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AIG, Barclays and HSBC.
Increasing Shareholder Interests
The CDP is one of several influential shareholder initiatives seeking greater disclosure on carbon and other environmental issues. These shareholder groups have many overlapping members, are growing in numbers and are coordinating their international efforts.
Responses to the CDP get significant distribution throughout this growing community of interested investors. Other interested stakeholders also use the CDP database to understand who is acting and not acting on the carbon question.
| What You Need to Know: |
- The CDP surveys will land in the CEO’s inbox this week. For some it will be the 1st time; for others it will be the 6th.
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- This survey typically circulates through a variety of departments (Finance, IR, Legal, PR/PA) before finding a department that will decide on an action – respond or discard.
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- Many companies tend to ignore or minimize the significance of this request since it is not a regulatory requirement.
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- The CDP maintains a historic collection of all responses, rates their adequacy and documents those who did not respond.
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- It is easy for interested shareholders and other interested stakeholders to quickly compare and contrast the responses of all companies surveyed.
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- It is easy for interested shareholders and other interested stakeholders to quickly compare and contrast the responses of all companies surveyed.
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- The CDP is also asking about supply chain impacts, so even if you don’t receive the survey your carbon footprint is being increasingly scrutinized.
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How We Can Help
This growing shareholder interest can be used to your advantage both internally and externally.
Internally, Wallace Partners can help you:
- Identify how this information is currently being released by your organization
- Increase awareness and resources to support critical environmental projects
- Enhance internal communications and coordination about existing environmental programs
Externally, Wallace Partners can help you:
- Understand who is gathering this information and how it is being used
- Identify the most efficient and effective methods for addressing these growing demands
- Disseminate accurate information through existing networks
Sustainability Benchmarking
Wallace Partners uses a proprietary method to help companies understand their performance in relation to their peers. The CSR Performance Matrix enables clients to assess their standing based on the world’s leading rankings, ratings and listings.
Follow the link below for an example of this tool:
CSR Performance Matrix (PDF Format)
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We would be happy to host a call with you and your colleagues to provide an overview of this growing market and explain how your environmental disclosure is being viewed as a corporate governance indicator.
Please contact us if you’d like to schedule a call or if you have any questions regarding the contents of this email.
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