Companies come clean on climate change

A survey of the UK’s leading companies has found that the majority are measuring and publicly reporting their carbon emissions.

Businesses are increasingly regarding climate change as an economic issue, and recognising that measuring, publicly reporting, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions can bring genuine business opportunities."

Business in the Community’s Environment Index was completed by 155 companies, and in a question which assessed whether they measured, centrally aggregated and publicly reported their impact on climate change, companies scored an average of 94/100.  This is an increase in score of 16% from 2006.

Commitment to tackling climate change

The results reveal an encouraging trend.  ‘Going public’ with carbon statistics indicates a company’s confidence in the robustness of its data, which in turn demonstrates a serious commitment to tackling climate change.

Jim Haywood, Environment Director at Business in the Community said:

“Businesses are increasingly regarding climate change as an economic issue, and recognising that measuring, publicly reporting, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions can bring genuine business opportunities.  But there is more that business can do, and more businesses that need to be involved, particularly by working through the supply chain."

Comparing environmental performance

The Environment Index survey assessed companies’ management and performance across the environmental spectrum, and those companies that took part are listed in score bands in a publication entitled 'Measuring up: Corporate environmental benchmarking results'.  For more information on the results, please visit the Environment Index results page.

The Environment Index 2007 was sponsored by the Energy Saving Trust.