Corporate carbon caution

Survey of businesses says carbon cutting could require coercion

Business will only take carbon emissions seriously if forced to do so by taxes or regulation. That’s what 75% of respondents told the pollsters who conducted a recent survey of FTSE 500 companies, commissioned by emissions offset specialists the CarbonNeutral Company. But are they more cynical about their competitors than about themselves?

Perhaps so, because exactly the same large majority thought that developing low carbon technologies or processes, and “delivering against wider responsibilities to society”, should be more important priorities than simply controlling costs or meeting legal obligations on carbon emissions. And nearly all (92%) thought that being seen as a leader in the environmental field was likely to be good for business. One positive example might be Avis, which claims to be “the world’s first car rental company to take a leadership position on carbon responsibility”.

Its own decision to go ‘carbon neutral’, with a combination of emission reduction measures and offsets, has generated what it describes as “valuable interest amongst customers, shareholders, the media and staff”. No figures (yet), though, on how that value might be impacting the financial bottom line. In the main, however, the current position is far from encouraging.

Although 75% of the survey’s respondents thought that it would not hurt to put a carbon management plan in place, 61% said either that their companies didn’t have a CO2 target, or that they didn’t know if they did. Only one in five said they measured the carbon emissions from travel (though almost all of these had corresponding offset schemes). But, at the very least, there’s a fair consensus on cutting out unnecessary journeys; 77% said their companies use teleconferencing instead of travelling to meetings. - Roger East

6 January 2006

Roger East