The FT reports (June 22, 2014) that pressures are mounting on pension funds to report the long term risks of their investments in carbon intensive companies. The issue here is that if funds have big portfolios of firms with high carbon emissions, such as oil and coal, this will lead to big losses from stranded assets in the long term. Pension funds need to manage this risk, says the FT, and people saving for retirement need to know what their fund managers are doing about it.

Many publicly listed companies will also be required to report their carbon footprint. According to the FT, from September this year more than 1000 UK companies will have to report their carbon emissions. The EU will require more than 6000 companies to report on environmental indicators from 2016. In the US, on the other hand, the SEC has written guidelines for reporting climate risk but most companies do not yet do so.

A non-profit called CDG collects and shares measures of environmental footprint. They are campaigning for pension funds to commit to measure and publish their carbon exposure by the next UN Climate Summit.