Voluntary CSR Reporting Can Boost Your Company's Worth

Going Green: Market Reaction to CSR Newswire Releases
Paul A. Griffin, UC Davis, and Yuan Sun, UC Berkeley
January 29, 2012

A new study conducted by Paul Griffin of UC Davis and Yuan Sun of UC Berkeley shows that greenhouse gas emissions and carbon-reduction strategy reporting can lift a company's economic value.

Companies currently report most of their greenhouse gas, carbon, and CO2 emissions information to interested parties voluntarily, either directly or through various non-governmental channels (although the public will soon have access to standardized carbon emissions data collected by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board).

The researchers analyzed ten years of voluntary news releases, tracking disclosures and subsequent market responses for 84 companies that released their emissions information via Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire. They found that stock prices jumped approximately one-half a percent over five days, with smaller companies seeing a bigger boost of just over 2 percent. Using a matched control sample set, no statistical change in stock price was detected for companies that did not disclose carbon information.

The study concludes that voluntary green disclosure decisions produce positive returns to shareholders, and that shareholders of smaller companies with limited public information availability benefit the most from voluntary green disclosure, since in this setting investors have less access to competing information.

Read the study for all the details, and some additional insight from the authors on the Daily Climate.

Public Health Impacts of Climate Change

Poor, minority residents face most health risks with climate change | California Watch

Poor, urban and minority residents are most at risk for health problems linked to climate change, according to a new California Department of Public Health analysis of Los Angeles and Fresno counties.

Across the country, public health departments have become increasingly focused on the connection between health and climate change. The California analysis – the first to look at climate change health and safety risks at a county level – is based on a methodology developed by researchers at Occidental College in Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley, and it is part of an effort to help local officials plan and identify potential policies for handling the human health impacts of climate change.

The Union of Concerned Scientists agrees that health impacts are significant.  Its study states that California would experience the “biggest economic impacts and the biggest heath impacts when ozone and temperatures increase” due to climate change, said Elizabeth Perera of the union’s climate and energy program. That study projected that an increase in ozone pollution would result in about $729 million in related health care spending in California in 2020.

But climate change skeptics say California's climate-and-health analysis is misleading and unnecessary.  UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller, a onetime skeptic who changed his position on climate change, said that although “there is evidence of climate change that is visible to scientists but not to the everyday person,” the state public health department’s analysis is of limited use.  “It’s certainly true that the poor people of our state are always the most vulnerable to any change whatsoever – you don’t have to do an analysis to figure that out,” he said.

Read the complete article here.

EPA Approves Largest Coastal No-Discharge Zone in History

Cruise ships have been in the news a lot lately with the horrific disaster in Italy. More news effecting this industry was made yesterday, but this time, the story results in positive environmental benefits to the California coast. Jared Blumenfeld, the EPA’s Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator signed a rule that will finalize EPA’s decision to approve a state proposal to ban all sewage discharges from large cruise ships and most other large ocean-going ships to state marine waters along California’s 1,624 mile coast from Mexico to Oregon and surrounding major islands. Today’s action establishes a new federal regulation banning even treated sewage from being discharged in California’s marine waters. "This is an important step to protect California's coastline. I want to commend the shipping industry, environmental groups and U.S. EPA for working with California to craft a common sense approach to keeping our coastal waters clean." said Gov. Jerry Brown.

 

"By approving California's 'No Discharge Zone,' EPA will prohibit more than 20 million gallons of vessel sewage from entering the state's coastal waters," said Jared Blumenfeld. "Not only will this rule help protect important marine species, it also benefits the fishing industry, marine habitats and the millions of residents and tourists who visit California beaches each year."

This rule will have significant impact, especially when considering that several dozen cruise ships make multiple California port calls each year while nearly 2,000 cargo ships made over 9,000 California port calls in 2010 alone. EPA estimates that the rule will prohibit the discharge of over 22 million of the 25 million gallons of treated vessel sewage generated by large vessels in California marine waters each year, which could greatly reduce the contribution of pollutants still found in treated vessel sewage.

"California's coastal waters will no longer serve as a sewage pond for big ships," said Cal/EPA Secretary Matthew Rodriquez. "For too long, pollution from these vessels has endangered our marine environment, jeopardized public health and threatened the coastal communities that rely on recreation and tourism dollars. I commend U.S. EPA for helping us ensure that our coastline remains pristine."

The new rule is the largest in history in terms of geographical scope. In contrast to prior no-discharge zones under the Clean Water Act, which have applied to very small areas, the new ban applies to all coastal waters out to 3 miles from the coastline and all bays and estuaries subject to tidal influence. Other California no discharge zones for ten bays and marinas remain in effect for all vessels.

“Big ships make for big pollution but unfortunately, responsible disposal of sewage from ships hasn’t always been a given in California,” said Marcie Keever, oceans and vessels project director at Friends of the Earth. “The actions taken today by the U.S. EPA, the State of California, and the thousands of Californians who supported the Clean Coast Act mean that cruise lines and the shipping industry can no longer use California’s valuable coastal and bay waters as their toilet.”

For more information on the rule, click here.