October Monthly Briefing: Regulation, Regulation, Regulation Our views on what matters |
|
Our topic this month is regulation of business by governments.
Promises by politicians to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’, usually in pursuit of the elixir of ‘growth’, are easily made – but rarely come to pass. In an increasingly complex world, reality has a habit of striking back. Even so, a reluctance to regulate remains widespread.
What then are we to make of recent moves to mandate reporting of the financial impacts of climate change, an initiative (TCFD) that started out simply as a voluntary coalition of the willing? This is a pertinent question, as plans are afoot to use the same approach for the much broader topic of nature (TNFD).
Certainly, TCFD has spurred a huge increase in the volume of environmental data tracked and reported on. Less clear to me is whether companies are actually looking at the data themselves and changing their business strategies and investment plans in the light of what the scenarios are telling them.
Without that real-world evidence, TNFD risks being seen as over-reach, with a backlash ensuing – as we are now seeing with that other alleged numbers game, ‘ESG’ (in quotation marks to distinguish loose jargon from the really important concept of identifying the fundamentals of long-term corporate success).
For practitioners pondering the way forward, help is at hand. In her piece here, my colleague Sarah Kehoe surveys the scene and sets out four ‘first steps’ to a holistic approach. Other articles highlight recent developments, and also touch on the ever-topical issue of tax. Enjoy!
Mike Tuffrey |
|
|  | How TCFD and TNFD are shaping climate regulation Although TCFD has been developed to improve and increase the reporting of climate-related financial information, too many companies still see it as a tick-box exercise to comply with regulations. |
|
 | Time to get your house in order As the pace of regulation picks up, companies need to think about what they can do now to avoid the risks of non-compliance in future. |
|
 | ESG’s accounting frontier – corporate tax avoidance How corporate tax avoidance carries social costs for governments. Why must businesses consider the impacts and risks that their fiscal practices carry? |
|
|
 | Regulation, Regulation, Regulation Regulation can be an important catalyst for driving corporate action on sustainability. Read More |
|
 | ESG Bites: Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
On 29 September 2022, our in-house specialists David Fatscher and Jamie Macfarlane discussed the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) with our guest expert, Dr Jane Thostrup Jagd from We Mean Business Coalition.
|
|
 | Respecting Human Rights Across Your Value Chain Through a Living Wage/Income On the 11th of October, we hosted a webinar on the importance of living wage as essential for business and why it should be embedded within any corporate human rights due diligence approach. Watch the recording here |
|
|
|
|
