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Businesses acutely aware of climate change, report reveals

Image by Mikael Miettinen

Top companies are becoming increasingly concerned about the imminent threats of climate change, a report published today shows.

The Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) Global 500 report, which surveys 500 major international firms, reveals that 81 percent of respondents now identify physical risks to their business caused by climate change, up from 71 percent last year.

37 percent identify the physical risks as current, up from 30 percent in 2011.

78 percent now incorporate climate change considerations into their business strategy, up 10 percent on the previous year’s results.

However, the survey revealed that fewer than half of the companies have reduced carbon emissions solely as a result of deliberate efforts to do so. Rather, emissions reductions have been prompted largely by the global economic downturn.

As a result, the future prospect of an economic recovery could bring about an increase in emissions.

The average long-term target for carbon reduction among the companies was only 1 percent per year, significantly lower than the 4 percent believed to be needed to limit global temperature rises to 2°C.

Malcolm Preston, global head of sustainability services at report co-authors PwC, said: “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.

“The new normal for businesses is a period of high uncertainty, subdued growth and volatile commodity prices. If regulatory certainty doesn’t come soon, businesses’ ability to plan and act, particularly around energy, supply chain and risk, could be anything but ‘normal’.”

The CDP is an independent organisation promoting carbon reduction and water efficiency in business. It is funded by 655 worldwide signatories with a total of $78 tn in assets.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Robert Cooper .