Jun. 15, 2022
Dear Sirs and Madams, My name is Trey Beck, and I am contacting you from New York City. I currently work in the field of public policy, with an emphasis on protecting and enhancing civil society. From 1993-2016, I was employed at the D. E. Shaw group, widely considered one of the pioneers of quantitative finance and a globally respected hedge fund manager. I retired from finance as the managing director at the firm responsible for the firm’s global investor relations and external affairs, and was on the executive committee of D. E. Shaw Investment Management, which ran the firm's institutional asset management business. I'm a holder of the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. I have professional standing to opine on matters relating to investor communications. I’m contacting you to express my strong support for the Commission's proposed rule to require publicly-traded companies to disclose climate-related financial risk information (S7-10-22). Apart from that it is more broadly essential to our species that we dramatically quicken the pace of our collective response to climate change, it is also well documented in numerous academic and government studies that climate change poses enormous risks to individual issuers, markets, and indeed the economy as a whole. It is beyond reasonable debate that climate change is already impacting companies’ financials. It is thus imperative that investors and the broader public be provided with essential information about issuers' exposure to climate change. In order to ensure that investors and the public have the best information possible, the Commission must make this proposal as strong and legally durable as possible and move quickly to finalize, implement, and enforce these disclosure requirements. By requiring that public companies disclose climate-related information in a reliable, consistent, and comparable manner, the SEC ensures that investors have access to standardized information about companies’ carbon pollution and climate-related risks. The rule will also put the U.S. closer to other countries already requiring these types of climate-related disclosures from companies or will shortly. This proposal is well within the Commission's scope of authority to protect investors, ensure fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation. I applaud the Commission for issuing it. Andrew (Trey) Beck, CFA Former Managing Director The D. E. Shaw Group