In 2016 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) considered for the first time whether financial disclosure reform should address information on sustainability matters and other sources of nonfinancial risk. The resulting debate over these issues raised fundamental questions about how well the federal disclosure regime addresses emerging risks and about how well private ordering, through shareholder engagement, the work of private standard‐setters, and corporate voluntary disclosure, can fill the gaps. This article argues that the current model of nonfinancial risk disclosure, based largely on private ordering, is ineffective and undermines the SEC's mission to protect investors, facilitate capital formation, and promote fair, orderly, and efficient markets. This conclusion rests on evidence that the current state of sustainability disclosure is inadequate for investment analysis and that these deficiencies are largely problems of comparability and quality that cannot readily be addressed by private ordering. This article also highlights the costs of agency inaction to investors and to public companies, which have been largely ignored in the debate over the future of financial reporting. It concludes by proposing avenues for disclosure reform.

中文翻译：

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非财务风险披露和私人订购的成本

2016年，美国证券交易委员会（SEC）首次考虑了财务披露改革是否应处理有关可持续性问题和其他非财务风险来源的信息。由此引发的关于这些问题的辩论提出了一些基本问题，这些问题涉及联邦公开制度如何应对新兴风险，以及通过股东参与，私人标准制定者的工作和企业自愿公开如何通过私人命令来填补空白。本文认为，当前主要基于私人订购的非金融风险披露模型是无效的，并且破坏了SEC保护投资者，促进资本形成以及促进公平，有序和有效的市场的使命。该结论基于以下证据：可持续性披露的当前状态不足以进行投资分析，而这些缺陷在很大程度上是可比性和质量问题，私人订购无法轻易解决。本文还着重介绍了机构无所作为对投资者和上市公司造成的损失，在有关未来财务报告的辩论中，这些损失已被很大程度上忽略。最后提出了公开改革的途径。