XBRL US urges structured digital reporting in California climate rules
When regulators start designing new reporting regimes, there’s always a crucial question: will the data be digital and usable, or trapped in PDFs?
In its response to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) Notice of Public Hearing on proposed greenhouse gas and climate risk disclosure rules, XBRL US have submitted a comment letter tackling that question.
The immediate focus of CARB’s proposal is procedural, including establishing fees under California’s SB 253 and SB 261 legislation and setting an initial reporting deadline. But CARB has made clear that a second rulemaking will follow, addressing reporting content, format, assurance and future timelines. That’s where the digital reporting angle becomes critical.
In its comment letter, XBRL US recommends that the next phase explicitly require climate and greenhouse gas disclosures to be submitted in structured, machine-readable XBRL format. If policymakers want transparent, comparable and analysable climate data, the format matters just as much as the content.
Without structured data, users are left manually extracting figures from static documents, which reduces the possibility of scalable oversight or data-driven climate policy. With XBRL, on the other hand, disclosures can be validated, compared and analysed automatically.
As climate-related financial reporting frameworks expand globally, decisions taken now about format will shape usability for years to come. CARB’s forthcoming rulemaking phase offers an opportunity to embed digital reporting at the foundation, rather than retrofitting it later.
Read the comment letter here.
