Global Carbon Rankings 2011 from the EIO

A new environmental tracking (ET) report provides detailed rankings of the carbon emissions of companies around the world. This report is a must read for Sustainability Professional, Investors, NGOs and anyone concerned about climate change.

The report was released on November 1, it ranked the world’s largest 1,300 companies according to their levels of transparency and greenhouse gas emissions. The report was released by the the Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO), a UK based NGO supported by a global research network.

These types of reports are crucial because they represent the first step in the wider ET initiative, which will see the Rankings translated into a market mechanism designed to apply pressure to company share price in line with emissions and levels of disclosure.

The purpose of the ET Carbon Ranking is to provide information on a company’s greenhouse gas emissions intensity as well as its level of disclosure and verification. The aim of the ET Carbon Ranking is to encourage increasingly higher levels of disclosure and verification while incentivising corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction on a global scale.

From 2011 the ranking will be based on a greenhouse gas emissions intensity metric relative to a company’s size, with companies ranked regardless of industry or sector.

Several key findings from the Global 800 Report:

– German based BASF comes top, disclosing all 15 Scope 3 Categories, according to the new GHG Protocol Scope 3 Reporting Standard.

– 55% of companies in the ET Global 800 report incomplete data or no data at all, indicating the scale of the GHG reporting challenge.

– The Netherlands is the only country with 100% disclosure within the ET Global 800, followed by Italy, with 88%, and Germany, with 84%.

– In total, only 21% of the ET Global 800 report public, complete and independently verified data, as defined by the ET Global Carbon Ranking Methodology.

– Europe leads the world on all disclosure metrics: 53.6% of companies report complete and independently verified data. This compares to 8.8% for North America, the lowest of any region.

– Europe is also the region with the lowest GHG intensity with an average of 1861.3 tCO2e/$M turnover per company across all three Scopes.

– This compares with a figure for the BRICS countries which is almost double, at average of 3122.97 tCO2e/$M turnover per company. However, this comparison must be viewed in the context of significant outsourcing by multinational companies to emerging economies.

– 208, or 26%, of companies within the ET Global 800, report one or more Scope 3 categories. However, only 17, or 2%, report 5 or more Scope 3 categories.

– Of this group, only one company, BASF, reports all 15 Scope 3 categories, according to the new GHG Protocol Scope 3 Reporting Standard.

For the full set of Rankings and Reports, as well as further information on the Environmental Tracking initiative visit http://www.eio.org.uk