The increasing rate and number of climate-related disasters affecting society is raising alarms within the executive1, legislative2, and judicial3 branches of government, making the corporate sector’s contribution to climate mitigation a significant policy issue.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Climate Related Risk Subcommittee recently issued a report4 finding that climate change poses a significant risk to, and could impair the productive capacity of, the U.S. economy.
Shareholders are increasingly concerned about material climate risk to both their companies and their portfolios and seek clear and consistent disclosures from the companies in which they invest.
In response to material climate risk, the steering committee of the Climate Action 100+ initiative (CA100+), a coalition of more than 500 investors with $52 trillion in assets, issued a Net Zero Company Benchmark (Net Zero Benchmark) calling on carbon emitting companies to work toward reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net zero, improving climate governance, and providing specific climate related financial disclosures.5
The Net Zero Benchmark includes ten indicators of company alignment with the Paris Agreement including a statement of ambition to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 for the Company’s scope 1, 2, and applicable scope 3 emissions in alignment with the Paris 1.5 degree goal.
Failure to address such critical climate issues may have a negative effect on our Company’s cost of capital and shareholders’ financial returns. BlackRock notes that investment flows into “sustainable” and climate aligned assets will drive long term outperformance relative to companies perceived as having weaker sustainability characteristics.6 7
Twitter discloses no GHG emissions data. The company states a goal for its current data centers to achieve 100 percent carbon neutral power by 2022, without defining ‘carbon neutral power.’ The company states it is offsetting current carbon emissions, but lacks clarity as to whether all Scope 1-3 emissions are being offset.8 Twitter is also lagging behind peers, many of which have made pledges, aligned with achieving net zero emissions by 2050. For example, Google pledged it will run entirely on carbon-free, not carbon neutral, energy at all times by 2030.9 Salesforce has validated its GHG targets through the Science-Based Targets Initiative.”