German pharmaceuticals company Bayer and Swiss consumer goods giant Nestlé have topped a list of companies providing information about greenhouse gas emissions data and climate change strategies.
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)’s annual report compiled by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) of greenhouse gas emissions data and climate change strategies at the world’s largest corporations reveals a 13.8% reduction in reported emissions between 2009 and 2012.
The report concludes that extreme weather events this year, like the hot US summer, fires in Russia and flooding in the UK, Japan and Thailand, have driven climate change up the boardroom agenda.
“Extreme weather events are causing significant financial damage to markets [so] investors expect corporations to think more about climate resilience,” says CEO of the CDP, Paul Simpson.
While Bayer and Nestlé take the top spots with a disclosure score of 100, other German companies BASF, BMW and Allianz Group also figure in the top ten.
In fact, in the listing of 379 companies, German companies are proportionally over-represented, along with companies from Finland, Spain and the Netherlands. France, Japan and the UK, however, are under-represented.
And while US companies dominate the best performers’ Carbon Performance Leadership Index (CPLI), there are some big names absent from the list that failed to respond including Apple, Caterpillar and Amazon.
However, despite the improvements, there is still a long way to go, says Malcolm Preston of PwC.
“Even with progress year on year, the reality is the level of corporate and national ambition on emissions reduction is nowhere near what is required. If the regulatory certainty that tips significant long term investment decisions doesn’t come soon, businesses’ ability to plan and act, particularly around energy, supply chain and risk could be anything but ‘normal’.”
For further information:
www.cdproject.net/en-US/Pages/HomePage.aspx
www.pwc.co.uk/sustainability
Related stories:
UK small businesses failing to get to grips with energy efficiency (6-Sept)
Mitsubishi cuts manufacturing emissions (4-Jul)
WWF corporate ‘climate savers’ cut 100 million tonnes of emissions (11-May)
BASF tops carbon disclosure ranking of world’s largest companies (2-Nov 2011)
Article source: http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/5372/
