EBAY eBay Inc

By Kimberly Chin

A group of large technology companies, including Google parent Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc., said they support consistent and regular reporting on climate-related issues, according to a letter sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.

The SEC's calling for climate change disclosures will encourage companies to regularly measure, track and report their progress on sustainability, the companies said.

"We believe that climate disclosures are critical to ensure that companies follow through on stated climate commitments and to track collective progress towards addressing global warming and building a prosperous, resilient zero-carbon economy," the companies said in the letter.

The agency is mulling whether to change or update its existing guidance on climate disclosures and whether to ask companies for mandatory disclosures on climate-related risks and environmental, social and governance factors. The agency opened a public comment period in March.

The companies recommend the agency should adopt a principles-based framework, include relevant greenhouse-gas emissions data, use existing climate reporting frameworks and standards and require climate reporting to be separate from other filings submitted to the SEC--due to the reliance on estimates and assumptions in climate reporting, they say--as well as to give companies enough time to gather and assure information from third-party providers.

Autodesk Inc., eBay Inc. and Intel Corp. were also among the group that signed the letter.

Write to Kimberly Chin at kimberly.chin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 11, 2021 06:23 ET (10:23 GMT)

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