Congratulations to Vodafone, the 100th corporate signatory to the Statement on fiduciary duty & climate change disclosure. The Statement has now surpassed 150 signatories overall.
Vodafone, along with now over 100 other corporations pledged to produce climate change-related information in mainstream reporting through the CDSB Reporting Framework or other comparable frameworks, whether or not required by current regulation. The 150 signatories make up a total of US$1.6 trillion market capitalisation and US$45 trillion of assets under management.
The Statement, coordinated by CDSB, is an expression of concern by a group of companies and investors that financial markets do not yet take sufficient account of climate-related corporate performance, risks and opportunities relevant to future shareholder value. This is as a result of a lack of comprehensive and comparable information in “mainstream” corporate reports for the investment community, which undermines the efficiency by which markets are able to allocate capital to its most productive uses over the medium and long term.
This commitment is undertaken primarily out a sense of fiduciary responsibility, and the belief that shareholders and plan beneficiaries have an inherent interest in the completeness and comparability of climate-related information available in annual and other mainstream corporate reports.
The Statement is also a call to action to others to follow suit and join these organisations in their effort to improve the allocative efficiency of our financial system.
