The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has voted to require company disclosures on climate risks and emissions for investors, in a move that could affect automotive companies and suppliers alike.
The first-of-its-kind ruling would require companies to report some greenhouse gas emissions, but modified the proposed rule to exclude the need to report scope 3 emissions, which are emissions that companies are indirectly responsible for throughout their supply chains.
Under this, around 2,800 (40%) of the 7,000 public companies registered with the SEC would be big enough to be required to report their scope 1 and 2 emissions, while 540 (60%) of the 900 foreign private issuers registered with the commission may also be subject to the disclosure rule.
Just hours after the ruling, 10 US states legally challenged it, arguing that the SEC has gone beyond its mandate, while it received criticism from climate campaigners who said it is the “bare minimum”, with environmental group Sierra Club, represented by legal non-profit Earthjustice, also considering challenging the decision.
The reporting of scope 3 emissions has been a contentious issue in automotive logistics. According to a study carried out by Kuehne + Nagel last year, 53% of respondents in the automotive industry did not have defined scope 3 emissions targets, while the remaining 47% had only defined short-term scope 3 targets, up until 2030. The research found that reducing scope 3 emissions “is not a priority in the global automotive industry”.
JLR is one carmaker on a journey to drastically reduce its scope 3 freight emissions – even if it is not required to report them by law. Levent Yuksel, the company’s freight operations director, recently told Automotive Logistics that his ambition is to reduce emissions by up to 30% by 2030 within upstream and downstream transport and distribution, which he says corresponds to between 3-5% of total scope 3 emissions.
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