The Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) has had its mandate extended to at least September 2018.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) yesterday said that the task force had proposed that it “continue its work until at least September 2018 with a focus on promoting and monitoring adoption of the TCFD’s recommendations by companies and evaluating the extent to which the recommended disclosures are meeting the interests of users”.

The proposal was “welcomed” during a two-day meeting of the FSB in South Africa earlier this week.

A spokesman for the FSB told IPE that the mandate has been extended and approved by the FSB. The initial phase had been to finish the recommendations.

The task force unveiled its draft recommendations for climate reporting in December, and the consultation on them closed in mid-February.

The task force is due to publish its final report and recommendations in June and present this to the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, in July.

In other news, Denmark’s PKA is expanding its climate change engagement strategy, according to Peter Damgaard Jensen, the pension fund’s chief executive officer.

Around two years ago PKA started engaging with companies in the mining and utilities sector with revenues linked to coal or other high-carbon energy. The policy provides for divestment if the pension fund is not satisfied with the companies’ plans to move away from these energy sources. PKA has divested from around 50 companies and is in dialogue with another 75, Damgaard Jensen told IPE.

The pension fund is now rolling out a similar strategy to the oil and gas sector.

Finally, Lombard Odier has launched a climate bond fund to help fight climate change. Its launch follows a strategic partnership with Affirmative Investment Management, a fixed income manager dedicated to impact strategies.

The global bond fund is a diversified investment grade portfolio that the asset manager said seeks “to simultaneously deliver a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy, or mitigate some of the effects of climate change while targeting a higher yield than a typical investment grade portfolio with lower turnover”.

The fund managers will seek investments “that provide positive climate-related outcomes”, such as renewable energy, land management or water resources, and investments in under-funded areas, such as climate change adaption, and in developing countries.

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