Green Gaps: Firm ESG Disclosure and Financial Institutions’ Reporting Requirements

Abstract

Background: Globally, governments are responding to climate change. The financial industry has followed, integrating climate risk to their investment decisions via Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations. Firms in environmentally sensitive industries, like oil and gas, are notably scrutinized for their ESG performance especially regarding climate change. Methods: Two samples were selected for a content analysis and comparison of environmental disclosure and investor requirements. The first sample is comprised of the sustainability reports for 30 oil and gas firms operating within Alberta. The second sample includes the ESG reports of 19 financial institutions with investment in the oil and gas industry. This data was triangulated via fieldnotes from conferences and informal discussions with oil and gas and financial industry representatives. Results: We find that both ESG investor requirements and firm disclosures suffer from a lack of standardization. Consequently, the financial industry is moving toward the adoption of the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) recommendations and the SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) framework in firm evaluations. European financial institutions have been leading the way in requiring firms to define their climate risk, set targets, measure performance, show improvement, and connect to strategy. Alberta oil and gas companies are responding with more robust ESG disclosure, though SASB and TCFD reporting is not yet widespread. Conclusions: Industry failure to respond to evolving disclosure requirements can lead to divestment. We contend that oil and gas companies that do not acknowledge climate risk and outline energy transition strategies tied to their business models and reputations potentially sacrifice access to capital. We expect firm ESG disclosure, especially radical transparency on environment, to increase as financial institutions execute on climate change risk evaluations. We contribute to the sustainability reporting and ESG literature by showing the impact of investors as stakeholders in effecting change to oil and gas firm level environmental disclosure.