In a recent column in the Guardian, Mark Carney and Michael Bloomberg talked about how managing climate change required information.

From rising sea levels to more severe storms and more intense droughts, climate change will present serious risks to, and create major opportunities for, nearly every industry. Citizens, consumers, businesses, governments, and international organisations are all taking action. And entrepreneurs are developing disruptive technologies that will create and destroy value.
The challenge is that investors currently don’t have the information they need to respond to these developments. This must change if financial markets are going to do what they do best: allocate capital to manage risks and seize new opportunities. Without the necessary information, market adjustments to climate change will be incomplete, late and potentially destabilising.

What investors need are climate-related financial disclosures.

After a year of intensive work and widespread consultation [the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on climate-related financial disclosure] recommendations are now publicly available. They concentrate on the practical, material disclosures most relevant to investors and creditors and which can be compiled by all companies that raise capital as well as financial institutions.

Are these disclosures likely to be forthcoming?

Probably not.  Can we really expect companies that have a big negative impact on the climate to voluntarily disclose this information?

This is where the Transparency Label Initiative comes in.  The Initiative’s label is being extended to cover climate-related disclosure.  It is being extend because this disclosure is necessary for an investor to know what they own.

Effective on January 1, 2018 companies that do not provide climate-related disclosure won’t receive a label even if the rest of their disclosures would merit the awarding of a label.