Greenpeace activists stage a performance calling for the introduction of a system on companies’ climate-related information disclosures on Sept. 20, 2023, in front of the Constitutional Court in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – Greenpeace, a non-governmental environmental organization, said Wednesday it will file a constitutional petition urging the adoption of a system that requires listed companies to disclose information on their response to climate change.
The petition, joined by 167 people as petitioners, will be submitted to the Constitutional Court later in the day, the environmental group said in a press conference.
A growing number of nations are moving for rule changes that would require listed companies to include information about climate-related risks, strategies and business projections in their regulatory disclosures so as to provide investors with useful investment information in the face of worsening global climate change.
The United States is one of the countries with its Securities and Exchange Commission planning to finalize and announce its climate change disclosure rulemaking later this year.
Greenpeace claimed the absence of climate-related disclosure requirements in South Korea’s capital markets act governing listed companies’ business disclosure statements creates information asymmetry between investors and companies, and infringes people’s environmental rights as well as investors’ property rights.
“In order to step up the democratic process of facilitating people’s supervision of firms and holding firms to account environmentally, climate-related disclosures should be institutionalized into law,” a Greenpeace campaigner said.
(Yonhap)
