The comments by the iPhone maker mark the most specific
prescription to date from a large public company about what disclosures are
needed, said Veena Ramani, senior program director for Ceres, a Boston-based
climate advocacy group.
The SEC last month said it will seek input on how companies
might report on their greenhouse gas emissions and other climate factors.
Investors have poured money into funds that use
environmental, social and governance factors to pick stocks, but a lack of
common standards has made it hard to compare issuers’ operations.
Jackson, a former U.S. environmental regulator, in her tweet
included a statement that Apple “believes that the SEC should issue rules to
require that companies disclose third-party-audited emissions information to
the public, covering all scopes of emissions, direct and indirect, and the
value chain.”
An Apple spokeswoman confirmed the phrasing referred to
so-called Scope 3 emissions like those resulting from the use of a company’s
products by other parties. While that can be simple for technology or finance
companies to provide, calls to publish the data can be controversial for other
industries.
In reporting its Scope 3 emissions in January for the first
time, oil major ExxonMobil Corp wrote that the data “is less certain and less
consistent because it includes the indirect emissions resulting from the
consumption and use of a company’s products occurring outside of its
control.”
Various other business leaders have previously called for
mandatory climate disclosures including Larry Fink, CEO of top investor
BlackRock Inc. In February, BlackRock also urged heavy polluters to disclose
their Scope 3 emissions to investors, like the Task Force on Climate-Related
Financial Disclosures has also recommended.
In addition, Apple was among hundreds of companies that on
Tuesday pressured the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to slash
greenhouse gas emissions.