Why Verify? The Case for Third Party Verification of Environmental Data Posted March 8, 2018 by Kealy Herman In recent years, we have seen a shift in how businesses perceive environmental and sustainability work. Once thought of as a niche issue relevant to a small subset of stakeholders, sustainability has become increasingly mainstream. Organizations are facing increased pressure from investors and stakeholders to improve transparency, completeness and accuracy of publicly reported sustainability processes and data. The primary means of ensuring this accuracy is through third party verification. What is Third Party Verification? Verification of environmental data is an independent quality assurance that assesses the accuracy and completeness of data, reliability of data management procedures, and adherence to protocols and standards for calculating environmental metrics. Verification evaluates whether your greenhouse gas emissions data and other key environmental metrics are relevant, complete, consistent, transparent and accurate. Verification is typically conducted to either a limited or reasonable level of assurance. A limited assurance results in a negative statement, which indicates that nothing wrong Read More
Key Changes to the 2018 CDP Water Security Questionnaire Posted February 21, 2018 by Zoey Kriete With the release of the 2018 CDP Water Security questionnaire, CDP continues to raise the bar on water stewardship disclosure and performance. This year, CDP has made a number of modifications to the questionnaire including an updated title in response to changing trends in sustainability reporting and increasing investor interest in value chain risks and opportunities. The latter has been driven by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations released in June 2017 which are designed to “help firms understand what financial markets want from disclosure in order to measure and respond to climate change risks and encourage firms to align their disclosures with investors’ needs.”[1] From Cape Town, South Africa to Sao Paulo, Brazil, we are witnessing unprecedented, sustained drought in densely populated areas of the world. Companies can no longer rely on consistent availability of potable water in many areas of the world. To ensure business Read More
FIVE SUSTAINABILITY AND ENERGY TRENDS TO WATCH IN 2018 Posted February 8, 2018 by Jordan Chamberlain What’s in store for 2018? We’ve highlighted five trends we expect to see in the coming year. We hope this summary helps keep a pulse on what’s new and inspires you to further explore these and other emerging trends. Increased transparency around the financial risks posed by climate change The potential scale of risk to assets is generating growing global investor concern and driving demands that climate change risks be assessed and disclosed in a measurable and consistent way. Increasingly, some of the largest investment houses in the world – including Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street – are setting policies to support shareholder demands for greater transparency. In June 2017, the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) issued recommendations for reporting on the financial risks from climate change. The recommendations guide organizations to look at both physical risks (e.g., wildfires, sea-level rise and extreme storm events) and transitional risks (e.g., Read More
