World’s largest public corporations embracing ‘green’ initiatives

By ILSTV Staff on Sep 15, 2011 in Featured, Green, Trends

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Narrator: The 2011 edition of the annual Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) Global 500 report, published on September 14, which examines carbon reduction activities at the world’s largest public corporations—including many in Canada—has found for the first time in the ten year history of the survey, that the majority have climate change actions embedded as part of their business strategy. The report, written by PwC on behalf of CDP, attributes this to growing board-level awareness of the link between energy efficiency and increased profitability. The report revealed that 68% of the world’s largest companies have climate change at the heart of business strategies, compared with 48% in 2010.

Download the report here: CDP-G500-2011-Report

ILSTV spoke with Paul Simpson, CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project, and asked him if the findings in the report suggest a move towards a low carbon economy.

Paul Simpson: The 2011 CDP Global 500 report shows that for the first time in the ten year history of the investor CDP survey, that companies are embedding climate change actions into their core business strategy. In fact a majority of companies have done so. Sixty-eight percent of respondents this year.

In addition we see an increasing number of companies adopting emission reduction targets; seventy-four percent have done so this year, showing that board rooms are increasing their understanding of the strategic need to do so. So great progress is being made by a majority of companies; however, to see a truly low carbon economy, we’re going to have to see far more significant action from corporations, investors and governments.

Narrator: One finding that came out of the report this year was that a high percentage of corporations are offering their staff incentives to come up with ways to reduce their organization’s carbon footprint. Alan McGill, a Partner in PwC’s sustainability and climate change division explains.

Alan McGill: I think one of the things to come out this year from the CDP report is 65% of companies now have incentive schemes in place for their staff; looking at how they can entice them to change their behaviour and drive innovation into their organizations. We’ve seen and disclosed over 1,780 different types of initiatives for carbon reductions being put in place now by these organizations, which just shows a huge breadth and depth of initiatives that are being undertaken, and those span across the entire business and the business model being operated by many organizations.

What is your company doing to reduce its carbon footprint? We’d like to know.