The Impact of Climate Disclosure Standards

Bain Partner Torsten Lichtenau sits down with Stephane Biguet, chief financial officer of SLB, to discuss the impact of climate disclosure standards.

Related Brief

Mere Compliance Won’t Be Enough as New Climate Disclosure Rules Hit

Annual financial reports will soon need to include regulated disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions, and companies need a strategic approach—fast.

Read a transcript of the conversation below:

TORSTEN LICHTENAU:  Hello, my name is Torsten Lichtenau. I'm a senior partner with Bain and Company, and I lead our carbon transition practice. I have the pleasure to be joined today by Stephane Biguet, who is the CFO at SLB. We'll talk today about the upcoming climate disclosures that are coming throughout the world.

Stephane, it's quite rare that financial disclosure accounting creates so much excitement, but that's exactly what's happening with climate financial disclosure. When you think about disclosure, you can approach it from just a compliance perspective, ticking the box, or from a much more strategic perspective. When you think about a company like SLB and how you approach climate-related financial disclosure, how are you thinking about it from a compliance and strategic perspective?

STEPHANE BIGUET: So I take it as a good thing, actually an opportunity rather than a challenge. What it does is promote transparency for all stakeholders. When you look at our employees, investors, and customers, disclosures help them understand better our role in the energy transition and the impact the company can have. On our side, it helps us understand better how we can improve and what we can do to actually accelerate our impact.

LICHTENAU:  And when you think about the energy and carbon transition, how much has it changed your strategy over the past years?

BIGUET: It has changed quite a lot. I mean, we actually rebranded the company. We refocused totally towards energy transition, again, not just in new energies but also in our core business. We think we have a role to help oil and gas companies decarbonize their operations. This is fully embedded into what we do, even in our core business.

LICHTENAU:  You mentioned it's transforming the whole of the company. The energy and carbon transition, how much is that a cultural transformation across all levels and functions of the company?

BIGUET: It was more than just one message. It was disclosing what the company strategy would be, what would be the next chapter for the company, and energy transition was the common theme across all the strategic directions we disclosed at the time.

LICHTENAU:  Stephane, so clearly, climate disclosure sits very much within finance with the CFO. So I presume you prepared your organization for it. Can you tell us a bit more about how the role of finance has evolved to address climate-related financial disclosure?

BIGUET: It's already been a few years that we've worked with this and with different frameworks actually. Our level of understanding and education is improving. We are now at the stage where most of our finance staff in the various countries are proficient, at least at a certain level of proficiency in ESG reporting. We have trained them, educated them, and now they are our own relays to the rest of the organization outside finance in the field. Now, we have incentives linked to sustainability for operations, and people can turn to their finance counterparts in the field to understand better how they can impact those measures.

LICHTENAU:  Now, when you think about climate disclosure, it does impact how finance works. You're the CFO. What is the one piece of advice you'd have for some of your peers about how to approach disclosure in a successful way?

BIGUET: Really, I would say embrace it. Go beyond the pure disclosure aspect and take this as an opportunity to change the behavior throughout your organization. Whether it's financing, sustainability-linked financing, or even with your customers providing assurance that their operations are saving a certain amount of carbon. So you can make this part of your business. This is why I really see it as an opportunity beyond the mechanical disclosure aspect. It's a business opportunity rather than a burden.