Number of firms reporting on emissions targets falls

Terry Macalister
The Guardian,
Tuesday September 23 2008

The number of top 500 global firms reporting their carbon emissions reduction targets to the investment community has fallen, but climate change is still rising fast up the corporate agenda, a new report claims.
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a scheme developed by 385 of the world's biggest investors holding assets worth $57tn (£31tn), says only 74% of leading companies have reported their strategy for reducing emissions this year, down from 76% a year earlier.
And while more than 80% of firms in the Standard & Poor's leading 500 listed US firms accept that climate change is a risk, only a third of them have plans to reduce pollution. The project's organisers believe the fall in the number of firms reporting on emissions cuts can be put down to a changing world economic order that has pitched more Asian companies into the top 500.
Chinese, Indian and other businesses are traditionally less aware of greenhouse gas issues because many of these countries are not obliged to make reductions in carbon under the Kyoto Protocol as they are in Europe.
Overall, more companies responded to the carbon disclosure project - 1,550 of the world's biggest corporations this time compared with the 1,217 that replied in 2007.
Paul Dickinson, chief executive of the CDP - which was developed to help investors understand their financial exposure to global warming - said: "With increased regulation on the horizon, investors are requiring this information to better understand the creditworthiness of companies in their portfolio and how climate change might affect their profitability."
Global corporations view climate change as a clear risk as well as an opportunity. But they are anxious about the lack of clarity around government regulation, which they admit is holding back investment, Dickinson added.
The only British companies in the top 12 rankings for a carbon disclosure index are Scottish and Southern, the gas and electricity utility, and the banking group Barclays. Others in the list include Japanese carmaker Nissan and the German chemicals group Bayer.