Current trends and key limitations of climate-related disclosure by Russian companies

Climate-related disclosure and reporting have become major topics of the discussion among the key players influencing business decisions in the past few years. The United Kingdom and other countries' plans regarding mandatory climate-related disclosure for the major listed companies, investors' enquires about CDP questionnaires to be filled and European Union actively promoting its carbon neutral plans influence Russian business community decisions. In order to comply with the latest trends and future demands it is critical to assess corporate carbon footprint correctly, especially for the most carbon intensive companies specialising in mining and steel production, which can be seriously affected by the forecasted EU Carbon Border Tax towards carbon intensive imported products. Although, currently there are some limitations which may misrepresent some of the Russian companies' greenhouse gas emissions calculation results, and further decarbonisation initiatives. One of the key reasons is a lack of national methodological guidelines and emissions factors provided by the Russian ministries and research centres, which have to guide Russian companies in the field of regional-based emissions assessment. This article examines the current trends of climate-related disclosure based on the CDP scores of Russian companies and discusses the potential ways of improving the national methodological support in order to provide quality and credible data connected with the climate risk management and disclosure. The most important drawbacks were identified, such as the lack of methodological guidelines and emission factors for calculating direct greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1), regional emissions factors for calculating indirect energy emissions (Scope 2) for the Russian Federation, as well as the lack of both methodological guidelines and emissions factors database for calculating other indirect emissions (Scope 3). Finally, the expected consequences of such methodological disadvantages were described, and the recommended steps to improve the effectiveness of this climate-related disclosure practice were proposed.