Many global brands have been exaggerating their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and are failing to deliver on their climate pledges, a new report concludes, calling on governments to enforce stricter regulations to prevent corporate greenwashing.
Two European environmental think tanks, NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch, examined 24 multinationals that endorsed the Paris agreement target of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030. Few have met their pledges.
"The overwhelming majority of these corporations are simply not delivering the goods they promised," write the authors of the 2023 Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor, the second annual assessment.
All sectors involved
The 24 companies are from a wide range of sectors, from retail fashion, to food, automobile, shipping and aviation (no oil companies or gas companies were included), which together account for about four percent of all global emissions.
The report found that the pledges of 22 of the companies would only cut 15 percent of their collective emissions.
The authors said the findings highlight the need for greater transparency and stricter government regulations on corporate climate efforts, to prevent companies from greenwashing their environmental impact, particularly when making ‘net zero’ claims.
“In many ways, carbon-neutral products are similar to cancer-neutral cigarettes,” said co-author Gilles Dufrasne of Carbon Market Watch.
“There is no robust scientific basis behind those claims, and most consumers are just completely confused about what those claims would mean.”
‘Very low integrity’
The only company whose climate plans have “reasonable integrity” is the shipping firm Maersk.
Eleven companies were found to have "low integrity," and four – including French retail food company Carrefour – had "very low integrity".
Carrefour said it disagreed with the report, and the company's director of engagement, Carine Kraus, told RFI that another report, the Carbon Disclosure Project, has given them an ‘A’ grade on climate change.
The Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor says Carrefour’s climate ambitions are murky and most of its locations are “explicitly excluded” from its emissions reporting in the company’s most recent annual reports.
“The company’s targets and measures appear to exclude more than 80 percent of Carrefour locations,” the authors wrote.
“Due to these scope exclusions and unexplained neutralisation plans, we interpret that Carrefour’s 2040 carbon neutrality target entails a commitment to the reduction of less than 1 percent of its emissions.”
Offsetting
The researchers also questioned companies' pledges to achieve "net zero’' emissions, arguing that most consumers would understand that to mean stopping the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
But 23 of the 24 companies surveyed plan to use offsets for 23 to 45 percent of their emissions, which would involve removing carbon from the atmosphere by artificial or natural means.
“We find that the offsetting projects that companies select are highly contentious as they are neither additional nor likely to result in permanent emission removals,” says the report.
A key part of the solution to pushing companies to better follow their own pledges is regulation.
“Sector-specific regulations and carbon pricing can support ambitious first-movers without putting them at an economic disadvantage compared to their less ambitious competitors,” writes the report.
(with newswires)
