Climate change governance is an increasingly important issue as more organizations are becoming mature in their climate change strategies. While best practices in some areas have emerged, there is little consensus on the most effective way to govern climate change within an organization. This report examines data publicly reported to the carbon disclosure project (CDP) from the Investor cdp Questionnaire to determine trends in climate change governance and uncover relationships between governance and performance.
The cdp data shows that there is a relationship between industry sector and climate change governance. Sectors exhibit differences in the amount of incentives given and the highest organizational level that is directly responsible for climate change. Organizations that are better known or have larger revenue also showed a relationship with climate change governance. Fortune 500 and high visibility brand organizations had more climate change governance than other organizations. Finally, both total revenue and disclosure scores for companies were related to their climate change governance. Generally, more climate change governance was related both to higher revenue and a higher disclosure score.