From Apple to Wal-Mart, Companies Make Bets on Climate Change

A coastal restoration project in the marsh coast of Louisiana, near the Gulf of Mexico on Sept. 8, 2014. A New Orleans levee board sued 97 oil and gas companies last year, arguing decades of drilling and dredging helped destroy coastal marshes that once shielded the area from flooding. Photographer: Derick E. Hingle/Bloomberg

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By Eric Roston

October 17, 2014 at 3:29 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

If acting on climate change hurts the economy, as the American Coal Council's talking points suggest, it’s a lesson lost on some of the world’s most successful companies.

Stocks of companies that take climate change seriously beat the wider market by almost 10 percent over the last five years, according to a report released this week by a U.K. nonprofit. The group, CDP, encourages companies to disclose their climate change work publicly, on behalf of hundreds of institutional investors.