Climate Reporting: A Research of the Development in Danish Listed Companies' Climate Reporting

Abstract

IPCC’s newest climate report shows that the global warming will result in severe consequences for the climate, ecosystems, animals, and human beings if the average temperature rises with 1,5°C or above. To limit the temperature risings actions must be taken now (IPCC, 2022, pkt. B.3 og B.6). Therefore, it is interesting to investigate how Danish companies listed on the Co- penhagen Stock Exchange work with and report on climate change. These companies and their CO2-emissions have a big impact on the climate and their efforts are therefore essential in lim- iting a rise of the global temperature. This thesis analyses how 29 Danish companies from three sectors; Industry, Healthcare and Finance, listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange report on climate and how their climate at- tention and actions have developed through the period 2018-2021. The thesis explores this through four examination questions with inspiration in Stolker et al.’s research paper from 2020 (Stolker et al., 2020). The results of this thesis disclose a positive development in the analyzed companies’ climate reporting and climate attention and action. Still the thesis reveals that many things remain to be improved; more companies need to include climate in CEO compensation, set climate re- quirements for their suppliers, and improve their climate accounting policies as these are found insufficient and inconsistent. In addition, the results disclose that the financial companies are lacking behind when it comes to setting a Science Based Target and need to improve their meas- urement and disclosure of scope 3-emission, especially category 15 – Investments. The thesis suggests that more simply and useable guidelines are needed if the companies are expected to succeed in limiting their emissions. In addition, the thesis makes it clear that the companies do not possess the sufficient resources to implement all initiatives and require- ments, why expertise from external sources are needed. For further research the thesis sug- gests that more or other sectors are included. This might disclose other problematic areas that have not been disclosed. In addition, the thesis suggests that a more detailed exploration of how the companies work on reducing their emissions, including how many of the companies there are using offsetting, could be disclosed.