Board guidance for company climate opportunities

Abstract

The major research question of this paper is whether net-zero pledges are a dangerous trap for boards of directors’ guidance and monitoring of their companies’ climate activities and opportunities. There is no current consensus on how to do so. Professor Bob Garatt is the Director at Good Governance Development Ltd, a London External Examiner at Gulf Cooperation Council Board Development Institute. He recommended the following research paper as an important and wise caveat that all boards need to consider as an antidote to easy ESG (environmental, social and governance) rhetoric and accounting. Dyke, Watson, and Knorr (2021), in their paper, “Climate Scientists: Concept of Net-Zero is a Dangerous Trap” provide guidance for boards to assess their companies’ climate activities and opportunities. Their research is summarized in two sections of this paper. This paper expands our five prior research papers, which focused upon specific board responsibilities for various aspects of climate impacts on their companies. To avoid this dangerous trap of net-zero pledges, our current paper provides an overall climate perspective for boards, providing guidance for the board of directors’ responsibilities for assessing the role of their companies in climate activities and opportunities. It is critical for boards to develop guidance and actions for monitoring companies’ climate activities and opportunities