There is increasing stakeholder interest in climate risk and opportunity analysis and disclosure, and companies are increasingly considering and publishing climate reports. Further, a growing number of organizations are creating recommendations, guidance, and methodologies they would like companies to apply. Common requests for this type of disclosure – including a “2-degree scenario analysis” – are technically challenging for companies to undertake and stakeholders to evaluate. Scientific understanding is a requisite first step for companies. EPRI has begun developing a technical foundation (Grounding Decisions: A Scientific Foundation for Companies Considering Global Climate Scenarios and Greenhouse Gas Goals, 3002014510) to inform company decision-making and discussions on climate scenario analysis and greenhouse gas emissions goal setting. This report furthers the technical foundation, providing information on trends in approaches, content, and frequency of climate disclosure that can help inform companies as they make strategic decisions around their analysis and reporting.
This work—a survey and analysis—builds off research initiated in 2013, when EPRI identified a need to understand current and anticipated sustainability reporting activities, including the value received and effort required. EPRI developed its first electronic survey that year, and published survey results and accompanying analysis in 2015 (EPRI 3002006996). The Sustainability Reporting Trends survey has been administered annually to track trends in sustainability reporting and disclosure.
In 2018, a new set of questions was added to specifically understand reporting and disclosure trends related to climate-specific risks, opportunities, and planning, including potential future climate policy and physical impacts. The new questions are based on the scientific technical issues for methodologies identified in EPRI report 3002014510. The 2018 survey was sent to 42 North American utilities and had a 95% response rate.
This publicly available slide deck includes a project overview; the survey history, objectives and methodology; the survey results; and key insights and conclusions, as well as the complete questionnaire and a list of related publications.