Big business 'facing up to climate change'

Big business is increasingly facing up to climate change, with more than half of the world's 500 largest companies introducing schemes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a report said today.

The Carbon Disclosure Project's fifth annual global report on the FT500 found that 76% of the 383 top companies who responded to its survey had put emissions reduction initiatives into place, compared with 48% of respondents last year.

A total of 286 firms said they had implemented such a scheme, suggesting that a majority of major firms recognise the financial and reputation benefits of cutting carbon, the CDP report said.

Almost four fifths (79%) of publicly-owned companies who responded to the questionnaire recognised the financial risks climate change posed and a similar number (82%) also saw the potential commercial opportunities of global warming.

Some 95% of those who saw commercial risks in climate change have introduced emissions reduction programmes with a specific target and timeline, and 34% of survey respondents said they were purchasing a percentage of their energy from renewable sources.

But those who replied to the survey reported greenhouse gas emissions totalling almost seven billion tonnes, which represents 14% of all global emissions by humans.

The CDP said this was a 109% rise on last year, and while some was due to improved disclosure, some of the increase indicated rising emissions.

A growing number of corporations recognise the need to provide information on their response to climate change, with 77% of the FT500 responding to the survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project compared with 72% last year.

But the CDP reported that a fifth of companies disregarded shareholders' requests for information, either failing to respond at all (12%) or declining to answer (8%).

And while the gap between climate awareness and action appears to be narrowing, climate change is not yet the responsibility of top-tier management in many companies.

The S&P500 report on major US firms found many leading American companies are lagging behind the FT500, with only 29% of those responding to the survey implementing emissions reduction schemes.

The CDP is also launching a Climate Disclosure Leadership Index, to highlight the 68 companies in the FT500 which are doing the most to disclose and reduce their emissions - which include Coca Cola, Wal-Mart, Citigroup, Hewlett Packard, Royal Bank of Scotland, Allianz and Unilever.

The Carbon Disclosure Project is a collaboration of some 315 institutional investors with assets totalling more than US$41 trillion (€29 trillion).