Achieving Disclosure Efficiency Regarding the Climate-Related Issues: A Unique Challenge to the Present-Day Corporate Reporting

Abstract

Over the recent decades, climate change has been intensifying. The problems caused by climate change are unique. The process creates an exis­tential threat to humans and other living beings interrelated with another risk arising from the crisis caused by biodiversity deterioration and environmental degradation. The coexisting impacts of both factors on people, biodiversity, economic sectors, and entities pose unprecedented challenges to humankind. The present-day unfavorable impacts of climate change require adequate governmental, and managerial strategies, policies, and activities as well as ad­ministrative actions for achieving sustainable, fair, and resilient growth. Phe­nomena and processes indicating climate change are developing on a glob­al scale. That gives rise to discussions and highlights and justifies the need for meaningful, transparent, and complete climate-related disclosures. The necessity of trustworthy disclosures on climate-related matters and in­herent risks and opportunities related to adaptation to climate change and its mitigation is a problem of crucial importance to the article. The relevance of climate-related disclosures as a significant part of present-day corporate reporting proves to be of great significance for achieving disclosure efficien­cy. The author aims to highlight, discuss and justify the necessity of applying a responsible approach to carry out an adequate disclosure policy and provide meaningful, consistent, and comparable disclosures on climate-related mat­ters, risks and opportunities considered a significant part of present-day cor­porate reporting, and substantiate why probable benefits for a sustainable fu­ture can be expected, not only for the company. The terminology of the research is in the field of financial and non-financial re­porting and their regulatory frameworks that are still not fully aligned. Heuris­tic methods of knowledge – analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, descriptive approach, and techniques such as observation, analogy, compari­son, and others are applied, for achieving the author’s objective.