Unique-Centrica, Nestle, Swatch amongst corporations uncovered to bodily local weather risks-investors By Reuters

By Carolyn Cohn and Nina Chestney

LONDON (Reuters) – European vitality corporations Centrica (OTC:) and Galp, meals group Nestle and watchmaker Swatch are amongst 50 corporations worldwide which are extremely uncovered to bodily local weather dangers, buyers with $10 trillion in property mentioned on Thursday.

The businesses, that are concerned in vitality and mining, meals, prescribed drugs or know-how manufacturing or transport and utilities, are extra uncovered to points reminiscent of flooding than different corporations of their sector and area, the Institutional Buyers Group On Local weather Change (IIGCC) mentioned.

In a letter to the European, Asian and U.S. corporations from greater than 50 IIGCC members, the buyers requested the corporations to establish correctly and reply to occasions reminiscent of flooding, droughts and excessive warmth.

The IIGCC additionally revealed a set of expectations for all corporations on constructing resilience to bodily local weather change dangers, together with situation testing and reporting towards a set of danger metrics.

Corporations have come underneath stress from activists and buyers to chop their carbon emissions, with Shell (LON:) planning to attraction a landmark ruling on the difficulty.

However bodily dangers to a enterprise might be ignored, mentioned Marion Maloney, Head of Accountable Funding & Governance at Britain’s Atmosphere Company Pension Fund.

“We expect which are there two elements to the local weather change debate – typically the bodily dangers component is the poor cousin that does not get sufficient consideration,” she mentioned.

“I would like each firm in my portfolio to be these expectations.”

Different buyers signing the letter included AustralianSuper, Impax Asset Administration and Lombard Odier.

Centrica , which owns British Fuel, one of many largest vitality suppliers in Britain, mentioned it was “assessing each bodily and transitional dangers and alternatives we might face throughout numerous local weather eventualities” and was “rising our disclosures on the outputs from the evaluation in step with finest apply”.

Switzerland’s Nestle mentioned it was “already endeavor situation evaluation to evaluate bodily impacts on our price chain over an extended time horizon”, including this might “present route for our mitigation and adaptation actions throughout our uncooked materials sourcing and operational footprints”.

Portugal’s Galp Energia mentioned it’s dedicated to being a pacesetter within the high quality, accuracy and transparency of the knowledge it supplies to buyers and different stakeholders.

“This 12 months, we additionally concluded an analysis of local weather dangers and alternatives, together with bodily and transition, that will affect Galp’s anticipated portfolio by 2025, 2030 and 2050,” Galp added.

Switzerland’s Swatch declined to remark.

The investor initiative comes forward of the following spherical of worldwide local weather talks in Scotland in November, the place governments are being urged to speed up their efforts to succeed in web zero emissions by 2050.

It follows the discharge of a landmark United Nations local weather report in August warning that world warming was dangerously near operating uncontrolled.

The businesses had been recognized primarily based on analysis by the IIGCC and local weather danger knowledge agency 4 Twenty Seven.