For investors looking to weed out climate laggards from portfolios, these are vital questions but existing guidelines on emissions reporting and new rules due to come in for the United States and Europe are unlikely to provide hard answers.
The United States is on track to announce similar rules this year and the corporate standard, first launched in 2001 and revised in 2004, is also embedded in other international emissions reporting standards.
Nonetheless, many investors scrutinise carbon emissions data to gauge how polluting a company is, how it compares with rivals and how this might affect its bottom line and share price.
Another area of investor concern is how companies account for their own energy use, or Scope 2 emissions.
The GHGP allows companies to buy green energy to offset their emissions, using contractual instruments such as renewable energy certificates, and reflect this in their reporting.
Persons:
Fabrizio Bensch, Vanessa Bingle, David Lubin, Subaru, SCA's Lubin, Laura Kane, Kane, Jimmy Jia, Jia, abrdn, Pedro Faria, Faria, Pankaj Bhatia, Douglas Gillison, Sumanta Sen, Dan Flynn, David Clarke
Organizations:
REUTERS, Toyota, Shell, Greenhouse, World Business, Sustainable Development, World Resources Institute, Reuters, Alpha Financial Markets Consulting, Analytics, Subaru, North, Voya Investment Management, Voya, EU, Sustainability, IFRS, Oxford Smith School of Enterprise, Reuters Graphics, U.S . Securities, Exchange, Thomson
Locations:
Berlin, Germany, United States, Europe, Japan, North America, U.S, Britain, British, EU