Calif. climate bill to require business carbon emissions data

Romero described SB-253’s scope 3 emissions reporting requirement as critically important, noting that scope 3 emissions are on average “11.4 times higher than scopes 1 and 2 emissions.”

“There are corporate leaders who are successfully disclosing their carbon footprints today, so we know it can be done,” Romero said.

Wiener said transparency into a company’s carbon emissions data will help cut down on corporate greenwashing, a term used when a company makes false claims about its environmental and climate actions.

Despite the original bill’s failure to pass the California Senate floor last year “Our coalition is even bigger and stronger this year, and we know we can get this important legislation passed,” he said during the conference.

Sarah Sachs, senior associate of state policy at Ceres, a national sustainability nonprofit organization, applauded the California climate bills. Ceres backed SB-253 as well as the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act introduced Tuesday The proposed SEC rule at the national level would also require companies to report floods, fires and other climate-related risks facing business operations.

“We support these bills because the current climate reporting landscape is fragmented, incomplete and often unverified,” Sachs said during the press conference. “These gaps in publicly available emissions data and climate risk reporting create a massive blind spot for consumers, investors and policymakers who are seeking to understand the scale of the challenge or derive meaningful insights across the entire economy.”

Makenzie Holland is a news writer covering big tech and federal regulation. Prior to joining TechTarget Editorial, she was a general reporter for the Wilmington StarNews and a crime and education reporter at the Wabash Plain Dealer.