A coalition of more than 60 organizations is pressuring the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to strictly enforce and improve securities law which requires corporations to file significant environmental material expenses. The Corporate Sunshine Working Group includes a wide range of organizations including money management firm, Kinder Lydenberg & Domini, United Steelworkers of America, and Friends of the Earth.
"Our objective is to for the SEC to uniformly enforce their environmental accounting regulations and create more clarification for existing rules," says Sanford Lewis, an attorney and co-chair of the Corporate Sunshine Working Group.
Under current regulations, inappropriate threshold reporting requirements often mean environmental problems may not be reported to shareholders.
SEC requires disclosure of all environmental proceedings which are material to the business or financial condition of the registrant. Environmental organizations believe this requirement allows corporations too much leeway in interpreting what is financially material when it comes to disclosing environmental liability and cleanup costs to shareholders.
Source: Environment News Service (ENS):
http://www.ens.lycos.com
