How to Set Up Effective Climate Governance on Corporate Boards: Guiding Principles and Questions

An important element in ensuring that climate risks and opportunities are appropriately addressed is the important duty that boards of directors have for long-term stewardship of the companies they oversee. However, to govern climate risks and opportunities effectively, boards need to be equipped with the right tools to make the best possible decisions for the long-term resilience of their organizations.

The goal of this paper is to propose tools that can be useful for the board of directors to steer climate risks and opportunities: the governance principles are designed to increase directors’ climate awareness, embed climate issues into board structures and processes and improve navigation of the risks and opportunities that climate change poses to business.

By providing a compass to enable more effective climate governance, this work strives to contribute to the Forum’s Compact for responsive and responsible leadership and to sound an urgent call to action for purposeful stewardship from and for the most prominent custodians in corporations: their board of directors.

Read more and access the Principles here.