Climate Change Adaptation Disclosure Among the Companies in the Asia-Pacific Region: A Study Selected From the Forbes Global 2000 Leading Companies List

Introduction

Climate change has become a recent hot topic among governments, businesses, and NGOs and after the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change (December 2009). This is why different businesses and public figures are getting involved in climate control endeavors (ACCA & GRI, 2009; CIMA, 2010; Eberlein & Matten, 2009; Kolk, Levy, & Pinkse, 2008; Rahman Belal et al., 2010).

One of the main symptoms of climate change is the increasing global average temperature, also defined as global warming (UNFCCC, 2007). As pointed out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this increase began in the mid-20^th century due to the increased concentration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (IEA, 2009; Amran et al., 2014).

Climate change is fast becoming a major social issue. According to the IPCC, the planet’s structure is affected by human activities during the course of energy generation for powering global mobility and commerce, which subsequently affects the climate (IPCC, 2001). The Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change (Stanny & Ely, 2008; Vijn et al., 2007) stated that the global gross domestic product (GDP) will decrease if the amount of carbon emission does not decrease in the near future. Increased awareness on the significance of climate change has prompted many companies to carefully define their operations and quantify their activities.

Over the past two decades, governments have begun implementing or drafting policies to measure and address climate change, including the reduction of GHG emissions. In addition to the climate change management systems, businesses have begun developing innovative ways to decrease GHG emissions, improve waste management systems, and increase usage of renewable energies (Kolk & Pinkse, 2007, Sullivan, 2010; Amran et al., 2016). These activities influence the brand image of companies, which makes it easier for them to expand in the near future. (Esty, 2007; Wittneben and Kiyer, 2009, Sie and Amran, 2021). This is why many companies try to come up with strategies for climate change and use them as tools for managing environmental and sustainable development (Baumgartner, 2014; Amran et al., 2016).

As pointed out earlier, many organizations recognize climate change as an important criterion in their governance systems (Sullivan, 2009; Amran et al., 2016), as it presents them with the opportunity to enhance their competitive advantage and grow their businesses (Lash & Wellington, 2007; McKinsey, 2008; Amran et al., 2016, Ooi et al., 2019). In this context, many businesses began disclosing their climate change adaptation activities in their respective CSR and annual reports. There are many questions arising from these activities, such as who is adapting and how they are doing it, and whether adaptation differ between countries/regions (Berrang-Ford et al., 2011; Jaaffar et al., 2019). The Asia Pacific (APEC) region is one of the most important economic regions in the world, and it faces major climate change effects (ADB, 2009; Amran et al., 2016). Most regional governments began taking actions to decrease and contain the effect of climate change, such as reducing GHG emissions (WRI, 2010). We selected the APEC region as the research population, and the data were collected from some selected companies listed on the Forbes global 2000 leading companies of the APEC region.