Cooking the Books podcast: The climate change issue that will change your KiwiSaver and investments

Environmental issues can have a major impact on a company’s bottom line. Photo / Getty

Each week BusinessDesk and the NZ Herald’s Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it’s how your KiwiSaver and investments will change under new climate rules. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Environmental issues can have a major impact on a company’s bottom line, and yet until now, it’s often been seen as a nice-to-have consideration for investors.

That’s about to change.

The Government has put in new standards that require New Zealand companies to collect information on emissions and other climate-related impacts, and give that information to investors along with their annual results.

Even if you’re not in New Zealand, this is significant for you, too. Other countries are considering similar changes.

It’s supposed to make it much harder for things like greenwashing to continue.

The impacts could be seen in share prices, as the information is likely to change investor decisions, as well as filtering out to customers who might change their behaviour based on the new info. So basically, this change is likely to have an impact on company values around the world.

For the latest podcast I talked to Dr Amelia Sharman, director sustainability reporting for XRB.

For the interview, listen to the podcast here.

• If you have a question about this podcast, or a question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here, and Twitter here.

• Listen to the full interview on the Cooking the Books podcast. You can subscribe on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.