I was recently quoted in Corporate Compliance Insights sharing perspective on the new climate disclosure rules issued in March 2024 by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC voluntarily stayed the new rules while the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit completes judicial review of consolidated challenges to the new rules.
Specifically, I addressed the implications of the SEC’s decision to remove from the final rules its proposed requirement for companies to disclose climate expertise that members of the board of directors possessed (if any at all). “By not requiring disclosure of climate and cybersecurity expertise, companies may feel more comfortable recruiting board members based on needs specific to a company,” I explained in the article. “Companies can recruit board members based on desired expertise – whether that be financial, executive, climate, cybersecurity or other background – without worrying about how disclosure (or lack thereof) around climate or cybersecurity expertise would look.”
The full article, “Alive & Kicking: The Future of ESG,” was published May 15 by Corporate Compliance Insights and is available online. I co-authored a previous blog post about the SEC’s climate change disclosure rules that is available here.