ASTM Environmental Risk Standard Helps with Liability Disclosures

ASTM International has revised its guide for disclosure of environmental liabilities, called E2173.

Originally approved in 2001, the guide aims to help companies and public agencies understand their environmental liabilities, improve the effectiveness of their efforts to reduce these liabilities, and prepare their environmental liability disclosures that accompany financial statements.

ASTM member John Rosengard, president of Environmental Risk Communications, said the revised standard provides a clearer and more quantitative evaluation of environmental liabilities in place of more generic narratives in financial reports. “Owners and creditors will be able to understand if liabilities are material and accumulating at an unsustainable rate,” Rosengard said in a statement.

The revised ASTM standard comes as investors and other stakeholders are increasingly requesting corporations disclosure their water-related and other environmental risks.

During last year’s COP21 climate talks in Paris the Financial Stability Board established the Taskforce on Climate related Financial Disclosure, which aims to improve climate-related disclosures from listed companies around the world. The taskforce is slated to release their first set of corporate climate disclosure recommendations this month.