On March 6, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted the long-awaited final rules requiring issuers to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures in their annual reports and registration statements (Final Rules). The Final Rules phase-in over a multi-year period (no sooner than fiscal year 2025, due in 2026, for the largest issuers), dispense with the most controversial aspects of the proposed climate disclosure rules’ mandates and are already subject to multiple lawsuits, with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently blocking the Final Rules’ implementation (for now, at least).
Given this backdrop and uncertainty, it would be easy to be complacent in preparing to comply with this new reporting regime. Nevertheless, we are advising our clients to begin digesting and considering how they will comply with these new rules; regardless of when or if the Final Rules become effective in this form, climate disclosure is not going away, and the effort will not be wasted.
