FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 2022
CONTACTS
Climate Nexus, Jayson O’Neill (joneill@climatenexus.org)
The Sunrise Project, Jason Schwartz (jason.schwartz@sunriseproject.org)
Public Citizen, Patrick Davis (pdavis@citizen.org)
Americans for Financial Reform, William Pierre-Louis, Jr. (william@ourfinancialsecurity.org)
Organizations Garner Over 60,000 Signatures Urging SEC to Strengthen Climate Risk Disclosure Rule as Comment Period Closes
Supporters include numerous corporations, financial institutions and large investors, financial managers, and legal experts and scholars
Over 60,000 people support strong climate disclosure rules proposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and over 10,000 individual comments were submitted during the public input period, which closes today.
An overwhelming majority of the comments – which came from corporations, financial managers, former SEC officials, large investors, legal experts, student scholars, public interest organizations and financial advocates – urged a strong final rule that requires large publicly-traded companies to provide climate-related financial risk disclosures.
“The people have spoken. The vast majority of comments call for a strong rule from the SEC because a strong rule would benefit the vast majority of American investors, households, and retirees,” said Kathleen Brophy, senior strategist with The Sunrise Project.
“There is strong, unmet investor demand for standardized information regarding companies’ climate-related financial risks,” said Jessica Garcia, climate finance policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “The SEC must strengthen and finalize the proposal to require public companies to provide the information that investors need to manage the significant risks to individual companies, portfolios, and markets posed by the climate crisis and the clean-energy transition.“
“Investors deserve to know how companies are reacting to the global shifts created by climate change and the zero-carbon transition,” said David Arkush, managing director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “Some corporations are worried that investors will move their money when they learn how companies are handling, or failing to handle, climate-related risks. That’s how disclosures are supposed to work.”
Additional quotes from leaders of organizations responding to the close of the comment period available here, as well as links to the actual comment submissions and more background information.
At last count, over 75% of the 10,000-plus comments were supportive of a strong rule.
###