The Role of Supply Chains in Climate Disclosure

We examine the role of supply chains in shaping the public disclosure of climate information. We leverage a unique empirical setting enabled by CDP—the leading platform for corporate climate risk reporting—which allows customers to demand climate‐related information from their suppliers. Using a large international sample of customer–supplier pairs, we find a positive association between customers’ information demand and suppliers’ public disclosure on the CDP. While the estimated association is modest on average, it exhibits substantial cross‐sectional variation reflecting the disclosure incentives of both customers and suppliers as well as their relative bargaining power. We also find descriptive evidence consistent with one potential implication of the documented association for corporate decision‐making: shifts in supply network relationships toward greener and more transparent suppliers. Overall, our findings contribute to ongoing debates on how to foster climate disclosure.