A company’s business strategies, its future objectives and plans are the starting point for any risk assessment of the impact of climate change. Although there is uncertainty in the knowledge we have about future climate change, there is sufficient information to enable robust decision making to take into account the possible impacts. Investors should challenge companies that are unable to demonstrate how they have integrated climate change into their strategic planning.
One of the key measures of companies in the oil and gas sector is the size and value of their ‘legacy assets’. Our review of publicly available documents has failed to provide evidence that either buy-side or sell-side analysts have considered the potential impact of climate change on asset value when assessing company legacy. The physical impacts of climate change are now being felt across the world. Within the life of many current legacy assets and proven assets (and particularly those in the early stages of development) these impacts will become more severe, leading to increasing operational costs and additional capital investment requirements.
Direct impacts: extreme (acut