Reporting by Mathew Carr
Sept. 12-14, 2023 — The world needs to quickly shift to regulating corporate behavior from its current focus on regulating disclosure of climate-risk data, said Helena Vines Fiestas from the Spanish Financial Markets Authority.
The current dialogue on reporting is downplaying too much the end game, which is to protect the climate and nature, Fiestas told the Economist Impact conference in London.
We know what to report, now we need to deploy systems that reward the climate-saving behavior in the real world, said Taylor Francis, co-founder of Watershed Technology Inc. The company has built software that lets customers know how to reduce potential liability for pollution.
Capex of companies is more aligned to Paris targets than revenue is
The new data from ISSB work that’s coming out for the first time this year does seem to indicate that the capex of companies is more aligned to Paris targets than the revenue is [which makes sense because there is a logical lag between clean investment/spending and cost recovery from clean assets], Fiestas said.
Global securities regulator based in Spain IOSCO endorsed global green reporting standards by the ISSB – the International Sustainability Standards Board – in July.
“Isn’t it time for ISSB to include taxonomy-reporting (revenues and capex) as part of their climate standards?” Fiestas asked Wednesday on LinkedIn.
(Thursday adds detail about Watershed, improves headline; Wednesday specifies Spanish in the lead – apologies for the confusion; adds comment from LinkedIn)