Unveiled at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, the proposals take the form of a global framework that clarifies which climate change data should be reported by corporations and provides management with a set of guidelines designed to streamline disclosure procedures.

The proposed framework, announced 17 months after the formation of the CDSB, represents a vital step towards encouraging corporate boardrooms to disclose climate change related data in their annual reports by way of standard procedure. As the current economic crisis illustrates, the failure to acknowledge risks in the short term can lead to substantial legacies in the long term. There is no scarcity of warnings of the risk of irreversible climatic damage to the environment. Against this background, it is imperative that companies supply their shareholders with appropriate climate change data.

—Paul Dickinson, Chief Executive of the Carbon Disclosure Project

CDSB was founded in January 2007 at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which holds the largest corporate climate change database in the world, in addition to being a board member, acts as secretariat to the CDSB. The GHG Protocol’s Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard’ is being used as the basic emissions reporting standard and underlies the CDSB framework.

CDSB’s proposed framework will be available for download 26 May at www.cdsb-global.org and comments are invited by 25 September 2009.

CDSB operates through a Board comprising the following members: Carbon Disclosure Project (&& CDSB Secretariat); CERES; The Climate Group; The Climate Registry; International Emissions Trading Association; Richard Samans, Managing Director, World Economic Forum (Chair and Convenor); World Resources Institute

The Board is supported by an Advisory Committee of leading industrial, financial services and accounting firms as well as a number of distinguished governmental and non-governmental representatives, including:

Alcan; American International Group; APX; Confederation of British Industry; Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP; Duke Energy; Marsh McLennan; Royal Dutch Shell; JP Morgan Chase; Praxair Inc; Swiss Re; Tokyo Electric Power Company; SUN Group; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP; Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change; UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; California State Assembly; The Carbon Trust; The Greenhouse Gas Management Institute; United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative; and the United Nations Foundation.