TORONTO & NEW YORK & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New research from Manifest Climate, the leading Climate Risk Planning solution, suggests that while a growing number of companies are producing climate-related disclosures, a significant portion of these do not include decision-useful information.
In its inaugural Disclosure Benchmark Review, Manifest Climate reviewed the public filings of over 3,000 companies in 65 countries and assessed them on their alignment to the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). It also conducted a deep analysis of the decision-usefulness of over 100 companies’ reports.
Manifest Climate found that 66% of companies assessed in the alignment review disclosed some TCFD-aligned information. However, just 49% of the companies in the decision-utility review produced disclosures with sufficient clarity, specificity, and comparability to be decision-useful for investors and other stakeholders.
Among the key findings, Manifest Climate shows:
- TCFD-aligned disclosure varies significantly across sectors when looking at alignment with at least one TCFD recommendation. 96% of utilities’ disclosures over the period 2018-2021 included TCFD-alignment with at least one recommendation, as did 72% of banks’ disclosures. In contrast, just 16% of pharmaceuticals’ disclosures and 29% of mining companies’ disclosures feature TCFD-alignment with at least one recommendation.
- 43% of companies produced disclosures in 2018-2021 that addressed at least one of the TCFD Strategy recommendations, but only 12% included information aligned with the TCFD Governance recommendations.
- 0% of companies assessed under Manifest Climate’s decision-utility model cover all elements required for disclosures to be decision-useful across the TCFD recommendations.
- Among financial institutions assessed under the decision-utility model, 50% on average produced decision-useful information. Decision-useful information was most prevalent for the TCFD Strategy recommendations, at 62%, and lowest for the Metrics and Targets recommendations, at 41%.
Laura Zizzo, CEO and co-founder of Manifest Climate, said: “Our analysis supports the findings of the TCFD’s own 2022 Progress Report that TCFD disclosure is being adopted more widely across the globe. However, the clarity, specificity, consistency and comparability to make the disclosure decision useful just isn’t there, even within financial services which is a relatively well advanced sector for TCFD adoption.”
This is putting investors and the financial system at risk as investment and operational decisions are made without the required transparency and completeness of climate related information being available.”
Jeremy Greven, co-founder and President said: “It is exciting to see the deep experience behind our climate expertise paired with our advanced technology to produce this unrivalled perspective of evolving climate disclosures. We have created an advanced machine learning model capable of producing efficient and consistent progress reports. The scope and scale of our review provides a unique perspective of historical climate maturity progression. While coverage continues to increase, similar advances are needed in the quality of these disclosures to provide sufficient transparency to the investment community. Actions speak louder than words but investors need both.”
Using Manifest Climate’s decision-utility model, organizations can see how their climate disclosures stack up against their peers and identify gaps between their public-facing communications and internal climate actions, while financial institutions can survey the quality of climate disclosures across their portfolio companies and judge the credibility of the climate promises laid out in their public reports.
To download the full report please visit Manifest Climate’s Disclosure Benchmark Review.
About Manifest Climate
Manifest Climate is a global Climate Risk Planning solution helping businesses understand, manage, and communicate their climate-related financial risks and opportunities. Manifest Climate empowers organizations by highlighting and surfacing best practices, allowing clients and the broader capital markets to look into disclosures of public organizations and make better decisions. Their powerful software, supported by a team of climate experts, embeds intelligence to guide leading organizations in North America and the UK through their climate journeys and to prepare for a climate-adjusted future. For more information, visit manifestclimate.com.
