Daily Journal Publishes Akin Gump Article on Likely Increase in ESG Disclosures Due to Pandemic

Daily Journal has published the article “ESG disclosure issues during—and after—the COVID-19 pandemic,” written by Akin Gump partners Stacey Mitchell, who leads the firm’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) practice, and Peter Altman and associates Bryan Williamson and Joshua Tate. The article looks at the likelihood of ESG disclosures becoming “a topic for an increasing number of company management teams and boards of directors as they plan for periodic and annual reporting on a go-forward basis.”

The authors write that “the quickly evolving nature of the COVID-19 crisis has forced companies to adapt to unique, developing risks.” As a result, they say, public companies “are now faced with assessing the materiality of risks on a near-daily basis.”

The article offers some tips on how companies can best respond to the crisis with their disclosures. One consideration, it says, would be to disclose any “creative solutions used to respond to the crisis,” such as repurposing facilities, expanding leave policies, or donating food and supplies to health care facilities or community organizations.

The authors conclude by noting that well-prepared companies will learn from the pandemic “and adjust their risk assessments across the panoply of ESG topics to include the real consequences we can expect to see from climate change, future pandemics, terrorist and cyber attacks, and supply chain disruptions.” The assessments, they add, should produce “specific, detailed disclosures rather than broad acknowledgements of risk or ambiguous speculation.”

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.