Carleton College’s Climate Change Lecture Series Continues

A lecture series at Carleton College focused on climate change continues with the appearance of Heidi Welsh, a research analyst for the New York City-based firm RiskMetrics Group. A 1988 graduate of Carleton, Welsh’s lecture is entitled “Global Warming and Corporate Responsibility” and will take place Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in Olin Hall, room 141. The appearance is free and open to the public and refreshments will be served.

In November 2007, RiskMetrics Group released a report based on a year of research, that studied 1,700 high-cap (over $5 billion capitalization) companies on over 200 policy indicators focusing on climate change, other environmental factors, labor and human rights, and ethics. As a research analyst for the Environmental, Social and Governance team (ESG) at RiskMetrics, Welsh sifted through environmental reports, websites, and security filings to assess the ethics and environmental policy of these companies.

Some of the questions that Welsh and her 50-member research team asked included: “Has the company set a target for managing its Green House Gas emissions?,” “Does this company provide numerical data on hazardous waste emissions?” and “Is there a committee of the board charged with the over sight of ethics?” Through these questions the team set a benchmark standard for ideal performance and judged each of the 1,700 companies relative to this standard. Firms with good disclosure on environmental factors fared well in the survey while firms with poor documentation of these factors did not score as highly.

The final report demonstrated significantly different results between companies in various sectors and with a range of geographic locations, although there were common trends throughout. Companies with a high risk of environmental damage such as the automobile and chemical industries were found to have better environmental policies in place. Utility companies also scored well in their climate change policies. However the average company performance was low with most companies scoring less than 50 on the RiskMetrics 100-point scale.

During her lecture, Welsh will discuss her research work on corporate responsibility in environmental issues. The lecture is part of Carleton’s 2007-08 Climate Change Lecture Series sponsored by the Environmental and Technology Studies Program.

For more information and disability accommodations contact Adam Smith at (507) 222-7018.