Climate change skills for the new CFOs. A preliminary analysis on TCFD by Italian listed companies

Titolo Rivista MANAGEMENT CONTROL
Autori/Curatori Paola Vola, Lorenzo Gelmini
Anno di pubblicazione 2022 Fascicolo 2022/2 Suppl. Lingua Inglese
Numero pagine 21 P. 189-209 Dimensione file 404 KB
DOI 10.3280/MACO2022-002-S1009
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più clicca qui

Anteprima articolo

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA)associazione indipendente e non profit per facilitare (attraverso i servizi tecnologici implementati da CrossRef.org) l’accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche

In the current context of climate change, and despite the general acceptance of the urgency of actions, accounting disclosure fails to outline financial climate-related risks. In this regard, considering the different environmental and sustaina-bility frameworks, this paper adopts the Task force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) framework because it encompasses the potential substantial risks to financial results stemming from a corporation’s climate dependency. It is noteworthy to investigate the changing role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as climate-related disclosures are constructed and reported based on TCFD require-ments, as transposed by the EU’s recommendations. Based on these premises, this study analyzes the reporting requirements provided by the TCFD for the voluntary disclosure on climate change that must be addressed by contemporary CFOs. Considering the required disclosure, it is possible to identify the competencies that CFOs must acquire in the immediate future (in terms, e.g., of environmental-managerial metrics that must be measured) and the soft skills that are required to collaborate with scientific experts who provide the technical side of the disclosed data. The authors develop a content analysis of the most recent, available Non-Financial Declarations of Italian listed companies and then disentangle the results into distinct categories. This study expands the field of knowledge of a key future issue and, in so doing, it emphasizes the role of accounting in fostering/contrasting the necessary actions to manage climate change.

Keywords:Climate change, Climate-related financial disclosure, Non-financial information, CFO, Italian listed companies.

  1. Abhayawansa S., Adams C. (2021), Towards a conceptual framework for non-financial reporting inclusive of pandemic and climate risk reporting, Meditari Accountancy Research, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print.
  2. Bui B., Chelli M., Houqe M.N. (2021), Climate change disclosure ratings: the ideological play, Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print.
  3. Canning M., O’Dwyer B., Georgakopoulos G. (2019), Processes of auditability in sustainability assurance–the case of materiality construction, Accounting and Business Research, 49(1), pp. 1-27.
  4. Communication from the Commission (2017), Guidelines on non-financial reporting (methodology for reporting non-financial information), -- available at: www.eur-lex.europa.eu.
  5. Communication from the Commission (2019), Guidelines on non-financial reporting: supplement on reporting climate-related information, -- available at: www.eur-lex.europa.eu.
  6. Cotter J., Najah M.M. (2013), Corporate climate change disclosure practices and regulation: The influence of institutional investors. Institutional Investors’ Power to Change Corporate Behavior, International Perspectives, Critical Studies on Corporate Responsibility, Governance and Sustainability, Vol. 5, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 81-97.
  7. Demaria S., Rigot S. (2021), Corporate environmental reporting: Are French firms compliant with the Task Force on Climate Financial Disclosures’ recommendations?, Business Strategy and the Environment, 30(1), pp. 721-738.
  8. Devalle A., Onali E., Magarini R. (2010), Assessing the value relevance of accounting data after the introduction of IFRS in Europe, Journal of International Financial Management & Accounting, 21(2), pp. 85-119.
  9. Edgley C. (2014), A genealogy of accounting materiality, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 25(3), pp. 255-271.
  10. Gibassier D., Michelon G., Cartel M. (2020), The future of carbon accounting research: “we’ve pissed mother nature off, big time”, Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 11(3), pp. 477-485.
  11. Hair J.F.Jr, Celsi W., Money A.H., Samouel P., Page M.J. (2003), Essentials of Business Research Methods, Wiley, Hoboken, USA.
  12. Hall M., Mikes A., Millo Y. (2015), How do risk managers become influential? A field study of toolmaking in two financial institutions, Management Accounting Research, 26, pp. 3-22.
  13. Haque S., Islam A. (2015), Stakeholder pressures on corporate climate change-related accountability and disclosures: Australian evidence, Bus Politics, 17, pp. 355-390.
  14. IMF (2018), İnci Ötker and Krishna Srinivasan. Bracing for the Storm. For the Caribbean, building resilience is a matter of survival. Finance & Development, March, 55(1).
  15. IPCC, Report 2018, -- available at https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/.
  16. King M., Atkins J. (2016), Chief value officer: Accountants can save the planet. Greenleaf Publishing, UK.
  17. KPMG (2021), -- https://home.kpmg/uk/en/blogs/home/posts/2021/02/how-does-your-esg-data-and-reporting-compare.html, Access on November 2021.
  18. Krippendorf K. (2013), Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology, 3 ed., Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, USA.
  19. Kvaal E., Nobes C. (2010), International differences in IFRS policy choice: a research note, Accounting and Business Research, 40(2), pp. 173-187.
  20. Lombardi R., Schimperna F., Paoloni P., Galeotti M. (2021), The climate-related information in the changing EU directive on non-financial reporting and disclosure: first evidence by Italian large companies, Journal of Applied Accounting Research, 23(1), pp. 250-273.
  21. Meek G.K., Saudagaran S. M. (1990), A survey of research on financial reporting in a transnational context, Journal of Accounting Literature, 9(145), pp. 145-182.
  22. Milne M.J., Grubnic S., Solomon J.F., Solomon A., Norton S.D., Joseph N.L. (2011), Private climate change reporting: An emerging discourse of risk and opportunity, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 24(8), pp. 1119-1148.
  23. NGFS, First Progress Report (2018), -- available at https://www.ngfs.net/en
  24. Nobes C.W., Stadler C. (2015), The qualitative characteristics of financial information, and managers’ accounting decisions: evidence from IFRS policy changes, Accounting and Business Research, 45(5), pp. 572-601.
  25. O’Dwyer B. (2011), The case of sustainability assurance: Constructing a new assurance service, Contemporary Accounting Research, 28(4), pp. 1230-1266.
  26. O'Dwyer B., Unerman J. (2020), Shifting the focus of sustainability accounting from impacts to risks and dependencies: researching the transformative potential of TCFD reporting. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 33(5), pp. 1113-1141.
  27. Palmeiro L., Gibassier D. (2020), Your company’s next leader on climate is … the CFO, Harvard Business Review, January, -- available at: https://hbr.org/2020/01/your-companys-next-leader-on-climate-is-the-cfo (accessed on November 2021).
  28. Pomponi F., Moncaster A. (2017), Circular economy for the built environment: A research framework, Journal of Cleaner Production, 143, pp. 710-718.
  29. Porter M.E., Van der Linde C. (1995), Toward a new conception of the environment-competitiveness relationship, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(4), pp. 97-118.
  30. Power M. (1997), Expertise and the construction of relevance: Accountants and environmental audit, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 22(2), pp. 123-146.
  31. Rüschen T., Eckey M. (2011), How Climate Change Impacts the Role of the CFO, eds. The Strategic CFO, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 265-284.
  32. Scheepens A.E., Vogtländer J.G., Brezet J.C. (2016), Two life cycle assessment (LCA) based methods to analyze and design complex (regional) circular economy systems. Case: Making water tourism more sustainable, Journal of Cleaner Production, 114, pp. 257-268.
  33. TCFD, Recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (2017), -- available at https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/publications/
  34. Veltri S., Ferraro, O. (2018), Does other comprehensive income matter in credit-oriented systems? Analyzing the Italian context, Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, 30, pp. 18-31.
  35. Venturelli A., Caputo F., Leopizzi R., Pizzi, S. (2019), The state of art of corporate social disclosure before the introduction of non-financial reporting directive: a cross country analysis, Social Responsibility Journal, 15(4), pp. 409-423.

  • La prospettiva della performatività e gli strumenti di misurazione e gestione della performance Lino Cinquini, Silvana Revellino, Maria Serena Chiucchi, in MANAGEMENT CONTROL 3/2024 pp.5
    DOI: 10.3280/MACO2023-003001

Paola Vola, Lorenzo Gelmini, Climate change skills for the new CFOs. A preliminary analysis on TCFD by Italian listed companies in "MANAGEMENT CONTROL" 2 Suppl./2022, pp 189-209, DOI: 10.3280/MACO2022-002-S1009