A new study just published shows the majority of large global corporations that have reported their annual greenhouse gas emissions for several years now are still releasing more carbon dioxide than they should.
At the same time most companies scrutinised in the study are still not using science-based thresholds to set emissions targets and to drive actions to reduce their carbon footprint.
Reuters Newsagency reports United States-based Climate Counts, an organisation that measures the role corporations, coordinated the study play on climate.
The report tried to analyse emissions of 100 companies against science-based targets that seek to limit rising temperature to two degrees Celsius.
Reuters reports the best placed in the ranking were software company Autodesk, consumer products giant Unilever and pharmaceutical Eli Lilly.
Besides taking actions that were aligned with what science recommends, these companies were among 25 in the list that reported increasing revenues along with declining emissions.
“It is a proof that decoupling of growth and emissions is possible, at least in the short term,” said Climate Counts in a statement.
The authors of the report chose 100 companies from 10 different sectors.
The main criteria to include corporations in the study were the regularity with which they have reported their greenhouse gas emissions over the last years.
Taking that into account, it is possible that the situation considering the corporate world as a whole is probably worse regarding actions to avoid climate change.
Many companies, particularly in less developed countries, do not report their carbon footprint.
“One of the premises of this report is that while sovereign nations must come to an agreement on how to reduce global CO2 emissions, there is an increasing role to be played by the business community,” said the report.
Countries that are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are currently negotiating a new global agreement to tackle rising CO2 emissions.
The new agreement would include emerging economies, which didn’t have any targets under the current Kyoto Protocol.
