Greenpeace asks SEC to enforce climate disclosures
Greenpeace Philippines on Monday urged the country’s corporate regulator to enforce stronger climate accountability on companies, after the soon-to-be host of the world’s Loss and Damage Fund was hit by strong storms killed at least 150 people.
In a statement, the environmental group said guidelines on sustainability reporting and climate disclosures operate under a “comply or explain” approach, limiting accountability in terms of corporate greenhouse gas emissions.
“If a company does not comply with the guidelines or fails to meet disclosure requirements, they can provide an explanation “for items where they still have no available data,” it said.
On Tuesday, community representatives including farmers and fisherfolk from a central Philippine province that was hit by Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in 2013 hand-delivered a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking it to enforce sustainability reporting and climate-related financial disclosures for publicly listed companies.
The lack of comprehensive transparency “undermines the principle of disclosure, which is an essential component of holding companies accountable if their operations or activities contribute to the worsening of the climate crisis,” they said in a letter to SEC Chairman Emilio B. Aquino.
In an email, Ryan Jay Roset, senior legal fellow at the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, which provides legal support to victims of Haiyan in Eastern Samar, said the SEC is “mandated to establish a socially conscious free market, and as such should ensure businesses are accountable not only to their shareholders but to the broader public as well.”
“In the context of the climate crisis, this duty includes ensuring that corporations, most especially those in environmentally critical or carbon intensive industries such as energy, oil, gas, and mining, comply with stringent requirements on climate-related financial disclosures,” he added.
Greenpeace campaigner Virginia Benosa-Llorin, who accompanied the typhoon victims to SEC office, said the government “must concretize the responsibility of businesses in the context of the climate crisis.” — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza
