The Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative has worked with the Climate Governance Initiative to produce the second edition to the Primer on Climate Change: Directors’ Duties and Disclosure Obligations.

The Primer provides an overview of contemporary evidence that climate change presents foreseeable, and in many cases material, financial and systemic risks that affect corporations and their investors.

With sections covering 26 countries and the European Union, board directors from across the globe can use the Primer to understand their legal obligations to their companies, and how to fulfill these by encouraging their boards to integrate climate change into corporate strategies, risk management oversight, governance and disclosure. Since the publication of the first edition in June 2021, there have been substantial developments in the way in which climate risks, impacts and opportunities are perceived by governments, regulators and debt and equity investors.

This new edition of the Primer reflects the latest legal information for boards.