Private climate change reporting:
an emerging discourse of risk
and opportunity?
Jill F. Solomon
King’s College London, University of London, London, UK
Aris Solomon
Faculty of Business, Athabasca University, Athabasca, Canada
Simon D. Norton
Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK, and
Nathan L. Joseph
Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to explore the nature of the emerging discourse of private climate change
reporting, which takes place in one-on-one meetings between institutional investors and their investee
companies.
Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives
from 20 UK investment institutions to derive data which wasthencoded and analysed, in order to derive a
picture of the emerging discourse of private climate change reporting, using an interpretive
methodological approach, in addition to explorative analysis using NVivo software.
Findings – The authors find that private climate change reporting is dominated by a discourse of
risk and risk management. This emerging risk discourse derives from institutional investors’ belief
that climate change represents a material risk, that it is the most salient sustainability issue, and that
their clients require them to manage climate change-related risk within their portfolio investment. It is
found that institutional investors are using the private reporting process to compensate for the
acknowledged inadequacies of public climate change reporting. Contrary to evidence indicating
corporate capture of public sustainability reporting, these findings suggest that the emerging private
climate change reporting discourse is being captured by the institutional investment community.
There is also evidence of an emerging discourse of opportunity in private climate change reporting as
the institutional investors are increasingly aware of a range of ways in which climate change presents
material opportunities for their investee companies to exploit. Lastly, the authors find an absence of
any ethical discourse, such that private climate change reporting reinforces rather than challenges the
“business case” status quo.
Originality/value – Although there is a wealth of sustainability reporting research, there is no
academic research on private climate change reporting. This paper attempts to fill this gap by
providing rich interview evidence regarding the nature of the emerging private climate change
reporting discourse.
Keywords Private climate change reporting, Risk discourse, Risk society, Sustainability reporting,
Climate change, Risk management
Paper type Research paper
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Private climate
change reporting
1119
Received 1 January 2010
Revised 21 February 2010
Accepted 21 July 2011
Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal
Vol. 24 No. 8, 2011
pp. 1119-1148
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-3574
DOI 10.1108/09513571111184788