LANDMARK REGULATION ON NON FINANCIAL REPORTING IN THE EU

Brussels, 29th September 2014: Today marked another step towards greater corporate transparency and performance on environmental and social matters, as the European Council agreed a pioneering new directive governing corporate reporting of non-financial information. Large listed companies in the EU will now be required to disclose their environmental and social impacts as part of their mainstream reporting to investors.

CDP, an international non-profit organization that works with 767 institutional investors with assets of $92 trillion, provides a global platform for companies to disclose environmental impacts and welcomes today’s outcome. The directive will affect about 6,000 companies - of those around 1,000 companies already disclose environmental information to investors via CDP and are therefore particularly well placed to respond to the directive.

Steven Tebbe, managing director for CDP Europe, comments:

“Having worked with the world’s largest institutional investors for over a decade to encourage companies to disclose and manage their environmental impacts, CDP regards non-financial reporting as vital for driving a sustainable European economy. Investors want to have the full picture and understand which companies are best positioned to thrive in a resource-constrained economy. This legislation shifts financial perspectives from short to long-term and presents a significant opportunity to increase EU competitiveness.”

In order to prevent fragmentation of legislative frameworks across the EU, CDP urges all EU governments to aim for alignment and consistency, when implementing the directive into national law over the next two years.

CDP has been directly engaged in the development of non-financial reporting by actively supporting the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB). CDSB’s Reporting Framework[1] for natural capital provides the only global framework for reporting environmental information (including all environmental topics covered by the Directive) in mainstream company filings, as well as setting out principles for reporting on any non-financial topic. The CDSB reporting framework is a unique tool that will enable EU companies to use data from their CDP response to comply with the new European legislation on non-financial reporting.

[1] http://www.cdsb.net/cdsb-reporting-framework

About CDP

CDP is an international, not-for-profit organization providing the only global system for companies and cities to measure, disclose, manage and share vital environmental information.  CDP works with market forces, including 767 institutional investors with assets of US$92 trillion, to motivate companies to disclose their impacts on the environment and natural resources and take action to reduce them.  CDP now holds the largest collection globally of primary climate change, water and forest risk commodities information and puts these insights at the heart of strategic business, investment and policy decisions.  Please visit www.cdp.net or follow us @CDP to find out more.

About CDSB

CDSB is a consortium of business and environmental organizations formed at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in 2007. Its purpose is to jointly develop and advocate an international reporting framework for the integration of information related to environmental matters into mainstream corporate reports such as an Annual Report. CDSB develops a reporting framework designed to elicit climate change-related information of value to investors in mainstream financial reports. Created in line with the objectives of financial reporting and rules on non-financial reporting, the CDSB Framework seeks to filter out what is required to understand how climate change affects a company’s financial performance, specifically in the mainstream corporate report. The CDSB Secretariat is managed as a special project of CDP on behalf of the consortium. For more information visit www.cdsb.net and follow us on twitter @CDSBGlobal.

For media information:

Laura Bergedieck
Director Policy & Reporting | CDP Europe | +49 30 311 777 163 | laura.bergedieck@cdp.net