Corporate disclosure of climate-related financial information aligned with recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures is steadily increasing, TCFD said Thursday in its third status report since the recommendations were published in 2017.
TCFD used artificial intelligence technology to review 1,700 companies' reports, and found the largest increases related to companies disclosing how they identify, assess, and manage climate-related risk, and industries with the highest exposure to material climate risk led with the highest levels of TCFD disclosure in 2019.
Since TCFD's 2019 status report, there has been an 85% increase in the number of companies expressing support for the TCFD recommendations. Nearly 60% of the world's 100 largest public companies support the TCFD, report in line with its recommendations, or both.
On average within the TCFD recommendations, 42% of companies with a market capitalization greater than $10 billion disclosed at least some information in line with each TCFD recommendation in 2019.
Furthermore, disclosure levels for these companies exceeded 50% for certain information under the Task Force's recommendations related to strategy and climate-related metrics.
TCFD's 2020 Status Report stressed that better disclosure is needed "given the urgent demand for consistency and comparability in reporting," particularly when it comes to the potential financial impact of climate change on companies' businesses and strategies.
"Investors are increasingly demanding climate-related disclosures from the companies they invest in, and this demand is driving global momentum around the TCFD recommendations across financial and non-financial sectors," said Mary Schapiro, head of the TCFD secretariat and vice chairwoman for global public policy at Bloomberg LP. The TCFD recommendations "may help encourage a standardized approach across sectors and regulatory jurisdictions," she said in a statement.
Task force chairman Michael Bloomberg said in the same statement that "it's encouraging to see leaders in the public and private sector implementing the Task Force recommendations, as outlined in this report."
