Energy and Climate Change Case Study
The Financial Stability Board (FSB) is an international body that monitors and assesses vulnerabilities affecting the global financial system. Recognizing the significant risk climate change poses to financial markets, in 2015 the FSB created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). In 2017 the TCFD published climate disclosure recommendations based on four key elements: governance, strategy, risk management, and climate-related metrics and targets.
Given the increased interest from investors on how businesses assess climate-related risks, estimate the financial impact and identify opportunities, Newmont conducted an analysis of TCFD’s recommendations and determined they would help improve the Company’s resilience to climate change as society transitions to a low-carbon economy.
This analysis included looking at our current reporting and practices as well as alignment to the TCFD disclosures. One important element of the TCFD recommendations is that they have been mapped to other climate-related reporting frameworks including those Newmont reports against – the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) and the GRI (formerly the Global Reporting Initiative).
One of the notable gaps for us to address is reporting on scenario planning, which consists of evaluating various future climate conditions and their impacts to our business strategy. One such scenario includes the Paris Agreement’s goal to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, which is a key aspect of our work on science-based targets.
To build on our energy and climate strategy and respond to increasing expectations for greater transparency around our climate-related risks, in 2019, we will continue work on addressing gaps and assessing science-based targets. We are applying an approach from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) – a partnership between the UN Global Compact, CDP, World Wildlife Fund and World Resources Institute – to assess science-based targets for 2030. The SBTi model helps companies identify their science-based target and understand the pathway to achieve it.
In 2020, we will commence reporting to the TCFD recommendations for year-end 2019.