Companies across all industries are facing increasing scrutiny relating to their sustainability and governance practices and policies. The landscape related to such regulation, compliance, and reporting is constantly evolving, including expanding in scope and complexity. For example, the SEC and the State of California have adopted laws that we anticipate will require significantly increased disclosures related to climate change. There are also proposed regulations, including federal acquisition regulations, which may impose additional and more expansive requirements. We may experience significant costs associated with regulatory compliance for sustainability and governance matters, including fees, licenses, reporting, and the cost of capital improvements for our operating facilities to meet environmental regulatory requirements. Increased focus and activism related to these topics may hinder our access to capital or negatively impact our stock price, as investors may reconsider their capital investment based on their assessment of our sustainability and governance practices and policies. In particular, investor advocacy groups, institutional investors, stockholders, employees, customers, regulators, proxy advisory services, and other market participants have increasingly focused on governance and sustainability practices and policies of companies. If our governance and sustainability practices do not meet investor or other stakeholder expectations, standards, or evolving frameworks and regulatory requirements, our stock price, brand, sales, ability to access capital markets, reputation, and employee retention, among other things, may be negatively affected.
In addition, from time to time we make statements regarding our sustainability goals and efforts. Although we intend to meet these goals, we may be required to expend significant resources to do so, which could increase our operational costs. In addition, we could be criticized for the scope or nature of these goals, or for any revisions to our goals. Moreover, we may determine that it is in the best interest of our Company and our stockholders to prioritize other business, social, governance, or sustainable investments over the achievement of our current goals based on economic, technological developments, regulatory and social factors, business strategy, or pressure from investors, activist groups, or other stakeholders.
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