Tag Archives: Climate Week

Earth Day – Climate Week – The World Celebrates Promises and Actions to Meet Climate Change Challenges

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April 21 2021

by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist, G&A Institute

In brief – yes, this is Climate Week, being observed just about everywhere on this precious Blue Orb floating in space. 

The varied observations are “surrounding” the now-50-plus-one years of celebrating Earth Day going back to April 1970, United States Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin was the moving force behind the very first Earth Day in the United States of America.

Good news for 2021: The U.S.A. is fully “back” in climate change matters with the nation rejoining the Paris Agreement and embracing and promising to surpass the COP temperature-limiting goals. As we write this,

President Joseph Biden and VP Kamala Harris are leading a global leader virtual summit on climate change issues.

Senator Gaylord’s words in Denver, Colorado that first Earth Day continue to speak to us across the decades: “Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human being and all living creatures.”

Here we are in 2021 in the USA witnessing the dramatic expansion of the decades of Earth Day celebrations with current and future promises, pledges, and action on many fronts – in many nations as well – and among global institutions (like the arms of the United Nations and many more),

And by tens of millions of people, individuals who care about the state of humanity and state of our planet.

While considerable focus is on the Biden-Harris Administration policy declarations and actions at the Federal level (“the climate administration”), there are many more actions at the state, city – municipality and tribal levels as well in the United States.

And, across the spectrum of firms in “Corporate America” and at many asset management firms there is the rapidly-widening embrace of ESG policies and actions.

‘No doubt the digital climate summit of this week will spur internal debate in corporate suites along the lines of: What are industry and investing peers doing – what else should we be doing! What are our risks and opportunities as the world engages to move toward Net Neutrality!

In this brief post we are sharing timely updates in each of our subject/topic silos that readers find each week in the G&A Sustainability Highlights newsletter.

Reminder – there is much more related current and archived climate change content beyond the silos for you on the G&A’s SustainabilityHQ platform.  And more related content to share on G&A’s Sustainability Update blog.

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Eyes on Financial Accounting and Reporting Standards – IASB & FASB Consider “Convergence” and Separate Actions

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by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

March 2021

Investors Call For More Non-Financial Standards for Corporate Reporting, Less Confusion in “Voluntary” Disclosure.

Should there be more clarity in the rules for corporate sustainability accounting and reporting as many more investors embrace ESG/Sustainable analysis and portfolio management approaches?

Many investors around the world think so and have called for less confusion, more comparability, more credible and complete corporate disclosure for ESG matters.

Accounting firms are part of the chorus of supporters for global non-financial disclosure standards development.

Where and how might such rules be developed? There are two major financial accounting/reporting organizations whose work investors and stakeholder rely on: The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and in the United States of America, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Both organizations develop financial reporting standards for publicly traded companies.

There are similarities and significant differences in their work. The US system is “rules-based” while the IASB’s approach has been more “principles-based” The differences have been diminishing to some degree with the US Securities & Exchange Commission more recently embracing some principles-based reporting.

By acts of the US Congress, FASB (a not-for-profit) was created and has governmental authority to impose new accounting rules — while the IASB rules are more voluntary.

The US system has “GAAP” – Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for guidance in disclosure. The adoption of IFRS is up to individual countries around the world (144 nations have adopted IFRS).

The IASB standards are global; these are the “IFRS” (International Financial Reporting Standards) issued by the IASB.

The FASB standards are used by US-based companies. For years, the two organizations have tried to better align their work to achieve a global financial reporting standard – “convergence”.

The IFRS Foundation is based in the United States and has the mission of developing a single set of “high-quality, understandable, enforceable and globally-accepted accounting standards (the IFRS), which are set by IASB.

In 2022 IASB and FASB will have a joint conference (“Accounting in an Ever-Changing World”) in New York City to “…strengthen connections between the academic and standard-setting communities…” and explore differences and similarities between US GAAP and IFRS Standards.

Consider that the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which launched the TCFD, is on record in support of a single set of high-quality global accounting standards.

Convergence. In the USA, the “whole of government” approach to the climate crisis by the Biden-Harris Administration may result in encouragement, perhaps even rules for, corporate ESG disclosure. The IASB is not waiting.

The IFRS Foundation Trustees are conducting analysis to see whether or not to create another board that would issue global standards for sustainability accounting and reporting.

A proposal will come by the time of the UN Climate Change Conference this fall. Should the IFRS foundation play a role? The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) thinks so.

Many questions remain for IASB and FASB to address, of course. This is a complex situation, and we bring you some relevant news in the newsletter this week.

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Here’s an update from the IFRS Foundation and what is being considered:

Meanwhile, the European Commission separately is exploring how to strengthen “non-financial” reporting – there’s the possibility that there could be EU standards developed:

Helpful information about the FASB-IASB differences:

Rising Heat & Humidity, Rising Sea Levels, Up & Down Shifts in Crop Yields, More Large Fires, Huge Human Migration Within the United States -– What We Are Learning Today

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September 24 2020

by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

There is so much going on in the global sustainability space that we could draw an apt analogy – it’s “like drinking water not out of a straw but a fire hose!”

Every week our team seeks out the news, feature and research items that will help you stay informed on developments in corporate sustainability and CSR, sustainable investing, the actions of governments and civil society leadership, activists, academics & researchers…and more.

For the past two or three years the pace of these developments has accelerated and so created a long list of many “possibilities” to share with you.  Sometimes, certain news jumps up and shouts at us from the print or digital page.

Example:  This week we see a powerful accounting of the impacts of climate change as assembled by ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit journalism organization focused on the major issues of the day.   The collaborating journalists – at ProPublica and The New York Times with support from the non-profit Pulitzer Center — focused on “the compounding calamities of climate risk” and the projected impact on the continental U.S.A. over the coming decades.

The issues “stack on top of one another”, they write.  Such as rising heat, excessive humidity, oceans rising, very large fires, crop failures, economic damages, and more…scary projections for the 2040-2060 timeframe.   (That is starting only 20 years, or 240 months, just 1,000+ weeks away!)

ProPublica worked with data from the Rhodium Group, which when presented in the context of the report, tell a story of warming temperatures, and changing rainfall that will drive agriculture and temperate climates from south to north, as the sea levels rise and vast amounts of coastlines “are consumed” and dangerous levels of humidity “swamp the Mississippi River Valley”.

All of this will profoundly interrupt the way that we in this, the world’s largest economy, will live and farm and work later in this century.  This could be an era to be marked by mass migration within the U.S.A., far outpacing the dramatic “Great Black Migration” with large populations moving from southern states to the north, profoundly reshaping this Land.

The data is presented in maps and county-by-county review; you can in the visuals presented see how the temperate zone marches north and more…for corn and soy production, harvests will decrease and increase, depending on location in the country.

Economic impact? (Serious projections to consider today while we experience dislocation now due to the Coronavirus pandemic include rising energy costs, lower labor productivity, poor crop yields, increase in crime and more.

Which counties will rise and which, fall?  The maps tell the story.

This reportage was so important and timely that the NY Times published a comprehensive wrap up this weekend in the Sunday magazine (reaching well beyond two million print and digital subscribers).   We present this important reportage for you in the Top Stories.

Timeliness:  This is also Climate Week, with important digital and some physical meetings around the world to focus on climate change challenges. We’re sharing some of the coverage of that as well.

 

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