4.7 Climate-Related Disclosures
On March 6, 2024, the SEC issued a final rule that requires registrants to provide climate
disclosures in their annual reports and registration statements, including IPOs. The
final rule applies to all issuers, including SRCs and EGCs. The final rule was
scheduled to become effective on May 28, 2024; however, the SEC has voluntarily
stayed the rule’s effective date pending judicial review. For more information about
the final rule on climate-related disclosures, see Deloitte’s March 15, 2024
(updated April 8, 2024), Heads
Up.
The final rule and its voluntary stay do not affect the SEC’s
existing 2010 interpretive release.2 In recent years, the SEC staff has increased its focus on climate-related
disclosures in its review of public companies’ filings, including assessing the
extent to which the information provided by such companies is consistent with the
SEC’s 2010 interpretive release. On September 22, 2021, the SEC publicly released a
sample letter that highlighted the types of
comments the SEC staff may issue to public companies regarding climate-related
disclosures. Since the release of this sample letter, the staff has issued comments
to public companies in various industries. The SEC staff has been issuing comments
to entities about their climate-related disclosures under existing requirements.
These comments primarily focus on the business, risk factors, and MD&A sections
of SEC filings.
Footnotes
2
See SEC Interpretive Release No. 33-9106.