Episode 311: SEC Climate Change Disclosure Proposals Seen as First Step in Finding the Right Regulatory Balance

Proposed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules to enhance and standardize climate-related disclosures for investors are just the first step in terms of finding the right balance of what's required from a regulatory perspective, said Uma Pattarkine, a senior investment strategy analyst and global ESG lead for CenterSquare Investment Management.

Pattarkine told the REIT Report that the SEC proposals were “a lot more robust than I had originally anticipated,” given the level of initial disclosure, and require REITs to be able to get a lot of that data at the property level.

Many REITs, Pattarkine said, are already committed to science-based targets. For such companies, the SEC proposals will not impose any additional burdens. However, for REITs that have been lagging in terms of collecting data, “it's going to take a lot of work for them to get to what the SEC might require from a disclosure perspective.”