Corporate greenwashing is about to get harder

US president Joe Biden’s climate agenda isn’t doing so hot. His big climate spending package has been stalled in Congress for months. The war in Ukraine has the White House begging oil companies to drill more. And on March 15, Biden‘s climate-savvy nominee for top banking regulator at the Federal Reserve dropped out under fire from Republicans.

Now he gets one more chance: On March 21, the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to propose new regulations that will require all US public companies to disclose data about their exposure to climate change risks. The rules, which may face legal challenges and likely won’t take effect before the fiscal year 2023, will compel the country’s biggest carbon polluters to own up to their footprint, and reveal how they expect the value of fossil fuel reserves or other carbon-heavy assets to change in the future.

Thousands of companies already disclose these data voluntarily through NGOs like the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) or in their standard annual report. But major polluters like Exxon and Chevron are not among them, and inconsistencies between different companies in how they measure and report their climate risk make it hard to tell leaders from laggards.

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