Primer on Climate Change: Directors’ Duties and Disclosure Obligations

Publish date
1 Aug 2022
Reading time
60 min

The evolution of our understanding of climate change from an ethical or environmental issue to one that presents foreseeable financial and systemic risks (and opportunities) over short, medium and long-term investment horizons has significantly changed its relevance to the governance of both corporations and investors. This evolution means there are serious implications for the duties of directors and officers, and potential disclosure obligations for companies.

This second edition of the Primer on Climate Change: Directors’ Duties and Disclosure Obligations provides an overview of contemporary evidence that climate change presents foreseeable, and in many cases material, financial and systemic risks that affect corporations and their investors. It also looks into:

  1. General climate obligations in the jurisdictions where The Climate Governance Initiative is present though its global network of national Chapters;
  2. How company law and directors’ duties in these jurisdictions require directors to incorporate climate change into their strategies, legal oversight, and supervision of the companies entrusted to their care;
  3. Disclosure obligations; and
  4. Advice to directors.