Facing climate change, companies have no choice "to be or not to be" involved, but acknowledge and act to lessen their environmental footprint.
The majority of global companies are acting to reduce their emissions, says a 2008 report by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a London-based independent organisation challenging the world's largest companies to measure and report their carbon emissions since 2000.
Representing 385 investors with assets of $57 trillion, CDP received feedback from 90% of FTSE 100 companies this year, its highest sample rate to date; 74% of the Global 500 respondents reported their emissions-cutting targets.
"A business can only manage what it measures," said Paul Dickinson, CEO of CDP. The project intends to help businesses identify the risks and opportunities from climate change and turn awareness into action.
Toyota said: “We are convinced that only those automakers that successfully solve social problems in environment, congestion and accidents will be allowed to continue existing in society.”
With renewable energy purchases rising 24% in 2006-2007, IBM pledges a 7% global emissions cut in 2005-2010.
News Corporation aims to achieve a 10% emissions cut in 2006-2012 by reducing its use of non-renewable energy sources.
Siemens is promoting Netmeeting software as an alternative tool to travelling.
Wal-Mart is a typical case of carbon disclosure entailing changing corporate behaviour. It only came to realise its refrigerators emit more than its delivery trucks after completing the CDP questionnaire. Carrefour and Tesco have joined Wal-Mart to incorporate their supply chain emissions into their overall strategy.
Funded in 2000, CDP collects key climate change data from more than 1550 major corporations around the globe and has assembled the largest corporate greenhouse gas emissions database in the world. The first data was collected in 2003 and 2008 therefore represents the sixth year of corporate reporting to CDP.
Copyright Dongying Wang
No comments:
Post a Comment