SEC and Corporate Climate Reporting: New Review Explained

The SEC plans to take a hard look at how public companies apply 2010 agency guidance that emphasized the importance of disclosing how climate change impacts their bottom lines.

Allison Lee, the acting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, ordered the agency to enhance its focus on climate in its reviews of corporate filings that are pored over by investors. The goal is to move toward more “consistent, comparable, and reliable” climate reporting by companies, she said Wednesday.

The SEC’s potential scrutiny of annual 10-Ks and a host of other public company filings comes as the agency ramps up ...