Companies are required to disclose plans and efforts to reduce emissions, under new reporting rules. Photo: 123RF
Companies needing more of a steer on how to effectively measure their climate-related reporting can look to the financial watchdog for advice, with new guidelines published.
Regulations came into effect in January requiring companies to include transparent and consistent disclosures on their plans and efforts to reduce emissions, which are checked by the Financial Markets Authority.
The authority has now released draft guidelines on the process for consultation.
FMA manager for climate-related disclosure Jenika Phipps said the reporting was similar to what companies already filed but was more future-focused.
"There are similarities between what they would be expected to provide for financial reporting, so records could be board minutes, they could be plans or strategies, reports, all of those generic things that you think about with records," she said.
"But the difference here is that they have to prove compliance with the climate-related disclosures framework, so it's quite a bit of a different thought process for proving, in what is a lot of instances, forward looking information, compared to financial reporting, which is quite backward looking and proving what you've already done.
"There are some nuances here, and we're trying to give organisations the tools with this guidance, so that they understand what's expected from this type of framework compared to for example, financial reporting."
The authority acknowledged the reporting regime was new and would expect the market's ability to manage data sources and systems for collecting and reporting on climate-related information to improve over time, Phipps said.
The proposed guidance for keeping proper climate-related disclosure records was open for consultation until early August.