Canadian Securities Administrators Releases Guidance on Environmental Reporting

On October 27, 2010, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published CSA Staff Notice 51-333, Environmental Reporting Guidance (the Notice) to assist reporting issuers in meeting their existing continuous disclosure requirements under securities laws with respect to environmental matters.

The Notice is the product of recent consultations by the Ontario Securities Commission's Environmental Advisory Reporting Committee, among others. The Notice is also one of the first in Canada to illustrate guidance with examples of entity-specific disclosure based on assumed facts. These examples are not intended to set a floor or ceiling for an issuer's disclosure or to become boilerplate language, which the Notice generally discourages. Although some examples relate to climate change disclosure, the Notice is not restricted to climate change matters, but rather builds on recent efforts to address environmental disclosure generally.