Apple backs far-reaching emissions disclosure rules

By Ross Kerber

(Reuters) - Apple Inc on Tuesday called for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require companies to disclose emissions including from their "value chain," according to a Tweet from Apple Vice President Lisa Jackson.

The comments marked the most specific prescription to date from a large public company about what disclosures are needed, said Veena Ramani, senior program director for Ceres, a Boston-based climate advocacy group.

The SEC last month said it will seek input on how companies might report on their greenhouse gas emissions and other climate factors.

Investors have poured money into funds that use environmental, social and governance factors to pick stocks, but a lack of common standards has made it hard to compare issuers' operations.

In her Tweet Apple's Jackson, a former U.S. environmental regulator, said Apple "believes that the SEC should issue rules to require that companies disclose third-party-audited emissions information to the public, covering all scopes of emissions, direct and indirect, and the value chain."

The term "value chain" would appear to refer to so-called Scope 3 emissions that result from the use of a company's products by other parties. Calls to publish the data can be controversial.

In reporting its Scope 3 emissions in January for the first time, ExxonMobil Corp wrote that the data "is less certain and less consistent because it includes the indirect emissions resulting from the consumption and use of a company’s products occurring outside of its control."

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot)