February 7, 2006—A group of 284 institutional investors with assets of $41 trillion under management is writing to 2,400 of the largest companies in the world, asking for disclosure of investment-relevant information concerning the risks and opportunities facing these companies due to climate change.
This is the fifth such request by investors participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). CDP hosts the largest registry of corporate greenhouse gas data in the world.
This request, on behalf of $41 trillion assets under management, represents more than one third of total global invested assets and is a marked increase from the $4.5 trillion that participated in the first CDP request in 2002.
Commenting on the latest information request, Paul Dickinson, the project coordinator, said: “The increasing body of evidence confirming climate change is accelerating and is linked to human behavior, makes it clearer than ever that investors and other stakeholders require standardized information regarding the business risks and opportunities presented to corporations by climate change. Given CDP is the largest source of such information, with 960 corporations answering CDP questions last year, we are delighted to help the investment community once again secure updated information in a comparable format that adds value for them, via a single-request mechanism that is efficient for the corporations.”
Corporations that previously provided responses are invited to report progress. Companies that previously did not respond are requested to do so, or to provide a reason why they do not believe the request is relevant to their business.
Last year, 72 percent of the FT500 answered the CDP information request. These responses, along with reports analyzing them, can be downloaded free on the CDP Web site.
